Liam Lee and Tommy Mishima discuss their distinct strategies on the question of functionality in art and design for their installation for Cooper Hewitt’s Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Lee’s furniture examines the utility in everyday objects through the introduction of biomorphic shapes that encourage viewers to reorient their relationship to domestic space. Similarly, Mishima’s board game, despite also having a known practical appearance, is not meant to be played, but rather acts as one element of a larger installation that explores the power and influence of Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropic efforts. Although divergent in execution and objective, these two approaches converge on ideas related to home.
Liam Lee, Chair 17, 2024, featured in the installation Game Room in Making Home; Photo by Liam Lee
LIAM LEE Tommy, what constitutes a home, and what is its relationship to your interest in Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropic efforts?
TOMMY MISHIMA Home to me has an inextricable connection with family. My notion of home is a rather basic and conservative one, and in this respect it connects with Carnegie’s own sensibilities of home, where one could detect his strict Protestant ideals and values, which mirror some of my own Catholic upbringing. Carnegie’s Fifth Avenue mansion was built with as much consideration for the needs of his wife and daughter as it was for his own business necessities. What are some of the interests that have informed your work?
LEE For some time I’ve been interested in the relationship between the built environment and the human body, which has extended to object design. One thing that has informed my work is the notion that the domestic interior is imprinted with traces of its inhabitant—that our interiority is mapped onto the accumulated objects and detritus within our homes. This idea was generative, particularly during the pandemic, when both our homes and bodies became focal points of safety and anxiety, protecting us from the outside world, yet porous and vulnerable to external forces, susceptible to disease and violence. It became increasingly apparent that we are less apart from and more a part of those around us, and are consequently obligated to care for and be receptive to others. What initially drew you to research Andrew Carnegie?
MISHIMA Much of my work from the last ten years began with an interest in power dynamics, which gradually expanded to a curiosity in networks and the nature of information itself. I’m interested specifically in how narratives are born or created in the individual and how information is synthesized. This in turn led me to explore the role of games, primarily that of crossword puzzles, in forming public opinion.
For the Triennial, I’ve been developing a board game I’ve titled Philanthropy that is inspired by Monopoly. Philanthropy has a connection with both the concept of home and the history of Carnegie’s mansion. Board games are generally linked with family time, while Philanthropy has an inextricable link with the type of elite capitalism that inspired the game of Monopoly and made the erection of lavish mansions possible.
Excerpt from Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, (Cooper Hewitt | The MIT Press, 2025) published in companion with Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial (New York, Nov. 2024-Aug. 2025)
Tommy Mishima, Philanthropy Board Game, 2023–24, for the installation Game Room in Making Home; Photo by Wilson Santiago