Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Assignment
2 East 91st Street (Between Fifth & Madison Avenues)
www.cooperhewitt.org
Due: Friday, January 5, 2018
The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution, located in a mansion that was once the home of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
Please bring a guest to the museum with whom you can discuss the assignment.
When you pay admission you will receive a ticket and a “pen.” This pen will allow you to capture images that you can later pull up on your computer. You will need images for this assignment. DO NOT LOSE YOUR TICKET. The ticket has the information on it that allows you to download the images. You will transfer the pictures that you take with your pen to be printed with the assignment you hand in. You should also take a picture of each object you choose with your phone - the “pen” doesn’t always successfully upload the images. You must attach your ticket to your completed assignment when you submit it.
Required Viewing:
Esperanza Spalding Selects: D+Evolution - 1st Floor
Immersion Room - 2nd Floor
Joris Laarman Lab: Design in the Digital Age - 3rd Floor
This graphic will help you to interpret each object. Place the “pen” on the Collect Icon to save the information to the Cooper Hewitt website https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/visits where you will retrieve your images
Required Activity #1: You Are the Curator: Esperanza Spalding Selects: D+Evolution
Jazz musician and guest curator Esperanza Spalding chose fifty objects from the museum on the theme of D+Evolution. She wrote:
“As I’ve come to understand it, d+evolution is the the true nature of transformation.”
“Studying the history of these objects, I’ve learned that design does not progress in a straight line. Design grows in response to the same essential forces of breaking down and building up that inform all innovation.”
To curate means to select, organize, and present objects in a meaningful way. Choose your own theme and select 6 objects from the museum’s current exhibitions that illustrate that theme. Use the Pen AND take a photo of each piece in your 6 object show.
Choose your theme by pairing one element and one principle of design (for example: Color+Balance, Texture+Repetition, Shape+Emphasis…)
Write a brief statement, like the one Spalding wrote, to explain your show.
When you get home, create a playlist of 3-6 songs that provide a soundtrack for your show. Think about the order in which you would like the 6 objects to be viewed, and organize the music accordingly.
Your final “exhibition” should include:
● Images of your 6 objects labeled with the title, artist, materials, and date
● Song titles and musicians
● Exhibition title with a paragraph that explains your theme
Required Activity #2: Pattern Hunt & Immersion Room
Pattern Hunt:
As you navigate through the museum, observe and document 4 patterns from objects: textiles, models, architecture, drawings, prints, and furniture that appeal to you. You may use your phone to take a picture or you may sketch the patterns. When you arrive in the Immersion Room on the second floor, you will use these patterns to create a new and original design.
Immersion Room (2nd Floor):
Create a pattern using at least two colors and two line variations.
Take a picture of it with your phone. Now take a selfie with your pattern. Write a short reflection of your thought process in creating this pattern. How does your pattern compare to the patterns found in the examples you looked at earlier? Which elements and principles did you use to create your pattern?
Required Activity #3: You Are the Designer - Joris Laarman Lab: Design in the Digital Age - 3rd Floor
On-Site Design Experience:
Why would designers create chairs inspired by bones? Before you look carefully at the exhibit, write down three things that bones and chairs have in common (add these responses to your final, typed assignment).
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Look carefully at the Bone Series and watch the videos. Now answer the question: Why would designers create chairs inspired by bones? This time base your answer on what you have learned. Cite your sources (museum label, video, book). How close were your original three comments to the actual reasons (add these responses to your final, typed assignment)?
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Imagine a chair or lamp inspired by muscle, nerves, or fat. What would that look like? Sketch a few ideas here:
Now find an interactive touchscreen table. Using your museum pen, navigate through several materials and colors to apply to an original design for a chair or lamp. Save your final design with the pen and by taking a photograph. Retrieve your saved image at home and paste it into your assignment.
Required Activity #4: At-Home Design Experience
Look at the entire exhibition and answer the questions at the museum.
What is a voxel? ______
Do voxels remind you of anything that you have used to build things?
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Design a piece of furniture made of voxels for a room in your house.
The tables here are influenced by Rococo art, but Rococo doesn’t “GoGo” with everyone’s design aesthetic.
Take a photo of a room in your house AND ask a parent/guardian to help you choose a style (that would work well in that room) from the following periods:
Art Deco
Art Nouveau
Mid-Century Modern
Contemporary
Research the period that you choose and print out at least two images to serve as inspiration. Copy and paste these images into your final assignment.
Design a coffee table/chair/or couch inspired by voxels and the furniture period of your choice. You may use pencil, colored pencil, metallic colored pencil, watercolor, marker, metallic marker, and/or collage to create a 2-D rendering your piece of furniture. You may also use graph paper to simulate the “voxel effect.”