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“Making Home–Smithsonian Design Triennial”

thru August 10, 2025

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“Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial,”  at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, features 25 debut commissions that illustrate the ways design is embedded in contemporary life. Ranging from domestic objects to built environments to social systems, the exhibition considers home as an expansive framework with varying cultural and environmental contexts, and “making home” as a universal design practice. Organized in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the seventh iteration of Cooper Hewitt’s Triennial series will be on view through Aug. 10, 2025.

Installed throughout the Andrew and Louise Carnegie Mansion, the exhibition explores design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional experiences of home across the U.S., U.S. territories and tribal nations. The museum floors are organized by familiar interactions—“Going Home” (ground and first floor), “Seeking Home” (second floor) and “Building Home” (third floor)—interpreted in 25 installations by designers, architects, artists and their collaborators from across the nation.

“Making Home” engages directly with the domestic history of Cooper Hewitt’s own home in the Carnegie Mansion. The exhibition design by architects Johnston Marklee draws inspiration from the building’s early 20th-century interiors, anchoring each floor with a central gathering space. Aspects of the Carnegie-era interior—from area rugs to drapery, upholstered furnishings and brocades—are reintroduced through techniques of scaling, patterning, color saturation and trompe l’oeil in contemporary industrial materials. The visual identity for “Making Home,” developed by Office Ben Ganz, contrasts bold designs with intricate details that reflect the mansion’s craftsmanship and decorative motifs. Reconnecting the building to its history as a home, exhibition texts and signage are deployed on reimagined home furnishings in the shape of folded screens and playful plinths.

Over the full course of “Making Home,” Cooper Hewitt’s dynamic public programming will expand on the topics of the exhibition with talks, performances, screenings and hands-on workshops. Programs will invite all audiences—adult, family, teen and visitors with disabilities—to explore the contemporary U.S. experience from cultural, environmental and historical vantage points. The quarterly “Making Home Saturday Series,” launching Nov. 2, will feature two in-person program segments, including special guests, curators and Triennial participants. Programs will take place at Cooper Hewitt and expand beyond the museum to off-site programs at select organizations across New York City, as well as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

GOING HOME

On the first and ground floor of the museum, “Going Home” considers how people shape and are shaped by domestic spaces. Through reinterpretations of diverse home environments that traverse interior and exterior spaces, this section explores the historical and personal factors that influence home design and its profound impact on people’s experiences, behaviors and values.

For the front entrance to the museum, multidisciplinary artist La Vaughn Belle designed three architectural structures, adorned with fretwork and inspired by the vernacular architecture of Saint Croix. Her work focuses on the often-forgotten colonial narratives embedded in the architecture and material culture of contemporary society.

Robert Earl Paige’s architectural intervention upon the Carnegie Mansion’s grand staircase recalls the tradition of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement using buildings as canvases to manifest the interconnectedness of art, life and community. Draping architects Babb, Cook and Willard’s dark oak woodwork of 1902 with patterns influenced by West African textile traditions and Chicago monuments, Paige convergences the influences that have formed his unique aesthetic eye as an artist and educator.

The Black Artists + Designers Guild (BADG) explores the power of home libraries. Within Andrew Carnegie’s personal library, BADG creates an archive for Black history and culture with custom-designed seating, textiles and carpeting by BADG members and collaborators filling the space. Their project, “The Underground Library,” highlights the significance of literacy, underscoring that African Americans were denied the right to read under slavery.

Installed in Carnegie’s original home office, Liam Lee and Tommy Mishima’s “Game Room” examines the industrialist’s rise to power, networks of access and philanthropic strategies. Mishima’s drawings and board game Philanthropy mirrors Carnegie’s influence through tactical grant making, while Lee’s furniture pieces reference Carnegie’s office design and symbolize the power networks he cultivated.

Amie Siegel investigates value, cultural ownership and image making in her double-sided work “Vues/Views.” In her film and work on paper, 19th-century French panoramic wallpapers become a prism through which scenes of power, privilege, race and class refract and converge.

An installation by the Lenape Center with Joe Baker pays tribute to the Lenape people, the original stewards of Lenapehoking land, where the museum is located. Three suspended turkey-feather capes reference traditional Lenape garments, with the absence of a human figure symbolizing their displacement yet evoking their spiritual presence. The tulip tree, a culturally significant species for the Lenape, is featured in a surrounding wallpaper design, reminding visitors of its historical and enduring presence in the region.

“Living Room, Orlean, Virginia” embodies the complexity of bass-baritone Davóne Tines’s memories of homes and music making while commenting on the tension between comfort and precarity felt across the U.S. today. Set on a rocking plinth, artist Hugh Hayden has interpreted Tines’ elusive relationship with home as an attempt to regain balance and stability. The installation will be activated throughout the Triennial by a sonic composition by Tines and Zack Winokur, as well as a series of live performances.

A collaborative installation by Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams, “The Offering” presents a vignette of Black family life centered upon a dining room as a landing and gathering place. Elements of their room design reference the movements of African Americans from the U.S. South to northern states as part of the Great Migration. Upholstered seats, geometric textiles, ceramics and everyday objects recall how objects carried along the journey could provide a sense of belonging.

“Ebb + Flow” assembles collective stories and sounds from the Everglades wetlands of south Florida. Organized by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), the installation articulates the cultural and environmental heritage of this subtropical ecosystem, which is under threat from urban development and the climate crisis.

Joiri Minaya’s ceiling installation incorporates “haint blue,” a color rooted in Gullah culture and believed to ward off spirits, while intertwining elements of Caribbean flora and corrugated tin roofing from her native Dominican Republic to evoke diasporic histories. The use of wild rice, symbolizing African diaspora culture and escape, is intricately woven into the design, transforming the space into a sanctuary of safety, spirituality and healing.

An intimately adorned space, the former powder room in the Carnegie Mansion holds objects artist Renée Stout found and created. The work has been carefully arranged to evoke practices of self-care and self-creation, as the artist fashions a room to simply be herself.

On the ground floor of the museum, the exhibition presents the work of students at East Jordan Middle/High School who came together to welcome and connect with Spanish speaking families through a series of events, including Noche Latina (Latino Night). Videos documenting the work of students and community members are displayed along with portraits of East Jordan residents, drawn by then high school student Luis Carlos Chevez.

SEEKING HOME

“Seeking Home,” on the museum’s second floor, addresses a range of institutional, experimental and utopian contexts that challenge conventional definitions of home. Installations examine the idea of home through the lenses of cultural heritage, the human body, imagined landscapes and refuge.

Data journalist Mona Chalabi and visual investigation practice SITU Research worked with three individuals to render the architectural and interior details of their homes, which were destroyed with weapons manufactured in the U.S. during airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq; Manbij, Syria; and Khan Yunis, Palestine. The models will be on view alongside panoramic landscape illustrations that reveal the impact of domicide on cities and individuals highlighting the broader effects of losing shelter and community.

“Praise Frisco: Resurrection by Design” foregrounds William Scott’s work as a designer reimagining his hometown of San Francisco as a place of healing. Nearly 50 works on view from three decades demonstrate his evolving multimedia practice, including two new large-scale paintings and experiments in digital rendering software.

In “Contrast Form Gestalt” by the multidisciplinary collective CFGNY, the mansion’s family library, designed by painter and interior designer Lockwood de Forest, is recontextualized with contemporary construction materials, revealing through careful cutouts carved teak details and collaboratively painted landscapes sampled from his oeuvre. At the center of the installation is a group of unattributed objects from Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection, arranged in the shape of a figure to call attention to imperial attitudes of ownership as reflected in museum collection practices.

Created by the independent media platform PIN–UP in collaboration with living collectives House of GG, Lupinewood and Ten of Cups Farm, the film “Dream Homes” chronicles three contemporary LGBTQIA+ communal living structures across the nation, exploring daily life in these rural and suburban sanctuaries. The work reveals how these communities cultivate a profound sense of home while defying mainstream norms that can exclude queer people.

Drawing upon images he generated with artificial intelligence software, designer Curry J. Hackett, Wayside Studio constructs a world with dried tobacco leaves sourced near his family’s farmland in Prospect, Virginia. The immersive space is punctuated by Hackett’s collection of what he calls “speculative objects,” including embellished church fans, cast-iron skillets set amid rustling leaves and collaged video channels.

In “Birthing in Alabama: Designing Spaces for Reproduction,” Dr. Yashica Robinson, Trish Cafferky and Lori A. Brown explore the history of birth in Alabama, including the legacy of laws, building and zoning codes, to better understand the various systems that affect doctors, nurses, midwives and birth-workers’ ability to provide access to safe and affordable reproductive health care.

Artists Natalia Lassalle-Morillo and Sofía Gallisá Muriente’s expansive project examines the Smithsonian as a home for Puerto Rican cultural heritage. Made in collaboration with theater designer Carlos J. Soto, the installation proposes an artistic interpretation of collection storage, bringing to life the many actors involved in amassing and preserving the material culture of Puerto Rico.

Artist and biohacker Heather Dewey-Hagborg considers the hidden homes of people’s DNA while searching for her own biological specimens. Her installation in three works addresses how access to biodata is designed and experienced, addressing the potential lives of DNA at the intersection of surveillance, cutting-edge science, privacy and legal and ethical concerns.

BUILDING HOME

On the museum’s third floor, “Building Home” presents alternatives to single-family construction models, expanding and redefining home to embrace community space, cooperative living, land stewardship, decolonial practices and historic preservation. Large-scale installations explore building typologies grounded in regional histories and cultural specificity, and address contemporary issues such as housing precarity, environmental advocacy, memory and aging.

Organized by After Oceanic Built Environments Lab and Leong Leong Architecture, Hālau Kūkulu Hawaiʻi: A Home That Builds Multitudes presents a hale (building) that embodies grassroots efforts to care for ʻāina, a Native Hawaiian term for land, meaning “that which feeds.” This scalable design builds upon aspects of Indigenous Hawaiian architecture, adapting traditional hale and waʻa (canoe) lashing techniques—using cordage to secure built structures without metal fasteners—for contemporary architectural construction.

Master basket weaver and native-food activist Terrol Dew Johnson (1973–2024) and designers Aranda\Lasch’s “We:sic ’em ki” is inspired by traditional Tohono O’odham Nation homes that pair a wa:ato (whole-tree shade structure) with a ki: (earthen enclosure). Constructed of traditional desert materials, the work embraces an essential tenet of the O’odham Himdag—to live and build regeneratively into the future.

For “Casa Desenterrada,” designer Ronald Rael created a structure using debris from a large, fortified adobe compound originally built in 1855 by Lafayette Head to serve as the Ute Indian Agency and home in Conejos, Colorado. Adobe bricks display the names of those listed in Head’s census documenting Indigenous people enslaved in the region, objects excavated from the site, as well as images of the people and places that inhabited Conejos.

The prototype Mobile Refuge Rooms, designed by Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, demonstrate private, customizable transitional housing for people returning from carceral spaces. Configured with modular wooden units and shared lounge spaces, each room comes with its own Murphy bed, desk and storage space so that users can shape their environments during their reentry process.

Hord Coplan Macht’s “Aging and The Meaning of Home” installation recreates a supportive living environment designed to support seniors with physical and mild cognitive impairments. The furnishings and lighting show how design can positively impact people’s comfort levels and enhance their abilities as they grow older.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The exhibition is organized by Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Cooper Hewitt’s curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar; Christina L. De León, Cooper Hewitt’s acting deputy director of curatorial and associate curator of Latino design; and Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator of architecture and design at the National Museum of African American History and Culture; with curatorial assistants Sophia Gebara, Caroline O’Connell, Julie Pastor and Isabel Strauss, supported by curatorial interns and fellows Sunena V. Maju, Lourdes Miller, Elizabeth Watkins, Sara Valbuena and Bethany Vickery.

PUBLICATION

The accompanying publication, Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, co-published with MIT Press, will feature scholarly essays together with first-person home stories, photo essays and conversations. Available in February 2025, the publication will be designed by Sunny Park of Park-Langer, based in Los Angeles. 

SUPPORT

“Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial” is presented in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This project received federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum; the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino; the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Generous support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Support is also provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation; Edward and Helen Hintz; re:arc institute; the Keith Haring Foundation; the Lemberg Foundation; Maharam; and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

ABOUT COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

Cooper Hewitt is America’s design museum. Inclusive, innovative and experimental, the museum’s dynamic exhibitions, education programs, master’s program, publications and online resources inspire, educate and empower people through design. An integral part of the Smithsonian Institution—the world’s largest museum, education and research complex—Cooper Hewitt is located on New York City’s Museum Mile in the landmarked Carnegie Mansion. Steward of one of the world’s most diverse and comprehensive design collections—over 215,000 objects that range from an ancient Egyptian faience cup dating to about 1100 BC to contemporary 3D-printed objects and digital code—Cooper Hewitt welcomes everyone to discover the importance of design and its power to change the world.

For more information, visit www.cooperhewitt.org or follow @cooperhewitt on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Since opening Sept. 24, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture has welcomed 11 million in-person visitors and millions more through its digital presence. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. The museum has also launched and is continually expanding its reach with the Searchable Museum portal and other efforts to bring African American history into the world’s hands and homes. For more information about the museum, visit nmaahc.si.edu follow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000. 

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Visit AAQ’s Museum Architecture: Cooper Hewitt, NYC / 2014

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