The Collection | Collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Explore over 30 centuries of design online, from ancient Roman marble to Pre-Columbian textiles, Renaissance drawings, contemporary 3D-printed chairs, and digital code. Please note that cataloging a collection of over 215,000 objects is a work in progress. You may come across records with very little information, factual errors, or harmful language. We appreciate your help in addressing these concerns and invite your feedback.

Example Searches: Chair Poster Fork Sidewall Matchsafe Sampler

Collection Highlights

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Bandboxes

From Sketch to Product

In the Nursery: Wallpaper for Children's Spaces

Featured Objects

A black graphite drawing of a cat with a massive, rotund body, tiny legs, and a small head with wide, staring eyes and a vaguely humanoid face.

A wall covering featuring a large leaf and a bundle of wheat in an alternating repeating pattern.

A white plate featuring a delicate depiction in the center of a sailboat floating amongst plants and trees.

Dark green square fabric with large design of strips of seaweed tied in the middle creating a bouquet with a floral garland attached

Rounded square box with intricate illustrated scene wrapped around of ships along coastline and lighthouse in dark blue, white, black, and red.

Four adonized aluminum utensils laying on a flat surface. Starting on the left, a fork with purple tines and light blue shaft, dark blue bladed knife with a forest green handle. A gold headed spoon with a purple handle and lastly a smaller spoon with a dark blue scoop and gray handle. Each utensil has silver connectors.

Light blue square textile with decorative white grid pattern filled with champagne flute shapes and circles

Colorful cluster of tree branches and architectural forms crammed into floating teardrop shape with center pole at top.

Exhibitions on View

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Designing Peace

Duro Olowu Selects

Sarah & Eleanor Hewitt: Designing a Modern Museum

Foreign Exchange

Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics

Botanical Expressions

Botanical Lessons

Collections in Motion

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Arc Touch Mouse: Production Process

The Arc Touch Mouse was designed to be portable, comfortable, and sleek.

Curatorial Departments

Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design

Product Design and Decorative Arts

Textiles

Wallcoverings