Making Home

Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial explores design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional realities of home across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations. Installed throughout the Andrew and Louise Carnegie Mansion, the Triennial’s twenty-five debut commissions reflect perspectives influenced by a range of geographical, cultural, and social conditions. Together, these installations draw attention to a variety of experiences under US sovereignty and influence while resisting a singular notion of America or what it means to be American.

The museum floors are organized by familiar interactions—“Going Home” (ground and first floor), “Seeking Home” (second floor), and “Building Home” (third floor)—interpreted by designers, architects, artists, and their collaborators from across the nation. The resulting works address meaningful issues impacting public and private life. Each illustrates the ways in which design is embedded in contemporary life, ranging from domestic objects to built environments to social systems. This Triennial considers home as an expansive framework with varying contexts, and “making home” as a universal design practice, built with our own intimate tools.

The seventh iteration of Cooper Hewitt’s Triennial series, Making Home is the first to be organized in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the first to directly engage the domestic history of Cooper Hewitt’s own home. Architects Johnston Marklee have drawn inspiration from the Carnegie Mansion’s early 20 th-century interiors to create an exhibition that anchors each floor with a central gathering space furnished with soft coverings. Along with the graphic identity developed by Office Ben Ganz, the design brings the mansion’s history as a venue for diplomatic and philanthropic activities conducted in the opulence of Gilded Age excess into dialogue with the diverse contemporary interpretations of home presented in this Triennial.

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.

The exhibition is organized by Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar; Christina L. De León, acting deputy director of curatorial and associate curator of Latino design; and Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator of architecture and design at the Smithsonian’s 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, Sara Valbuena, Bethany Vickery, and Elizabeth Watkins.