Johnston Marklee

Johnston Marklee’s exhibition design offers a reimagined experience of Cooper Hewitt’s Carnegie Mansion, transforming the historic former residence into accommodations for the twenty-five perspectives featured in Making Home. The design unifies the building’s four public floors—spaces that once served the various needs of Carnegie family and staff—with integrated materials and finishes that seek to dismantle the social and spatial hierarchies built into the mansion’s architecture; suggesting the rooms as places for all to gather. Aspects of the Carnegie-era interior—from area rugs to drapery, upholstered furnishings, and brocades—are reintroduced here through techniques of scaling, patterning, color saturation, and trompe l’oeil in contemporary industrial materials. With a focus on adaptation and reuse, the exhibition design includes new multifunctional furniture for visitor experience, modular carpet tiles which maximize adaptability of spaces for diverse needs, and groupings of existing seating enhanced with undyed fabric slipcovers. Conveying an ephemeral sense of time and occupation while suggesting some unknown future, these interventions weave together intricate narratives
about making home.

Designed by Sharon Johnston, Mark Lee, Nicholas Hofstede, and Andrew Fu.