Reports of the Museums and Research Institutes 



41 



documents the techniques the students use to turn the data 

 they collected into finished projects. The kit was sent to 

 every school in Mississippi, and the video premiered state- 

 wide on education television. 



In July the Center hosted 24 representatives from South 

 African museums, archives, and universities, and six faculty/ 

 staff from Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the 

 United States for a Summer Institute on Heritage and Tech- 

 nology. The institute was designed to teach how to develop 

 community-based fieldwork/documentation projects and 

 make cultural heritage collections more accessible to com- 

 munities and scholars within Africa and around the globe 

 through networked technologies. It is a three-year collabora- 

 tive training program initiated by Michigan State University 

 and in partnership with the Smithsonian and other South 

 African and U.S. universities, archives, and museums. 



There are good signals for cultural democracy on the hori- 

 zon. We are encouraged by foundations who have invigorated 

 cultural work, by initiatives in the academy where new pro- 

 grams address cultural policy issues, and by new institutions 

 that are bringing new energy to defining cultural communi- 

 ties and resources, examining public policies, and figuring 

 out how cultural resources may be preserved and utilized. 



Cooper-Hewitt, National Design 

 Museum 



Paul Warwick Thompson, Director 



Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, located in New 

 York City, is the only museum in the United States devoted 

 exclusively to historical and contemporary design. With its 

 exhibitions and publications, innovative education programs 

 for children and adults, curatorial research, and collections 

 acquisitions, Cooper-Hewitt continues a tradition of more 

 than a century dedicated to the exploration of the meaning 

 and impact of design on daily life. 



As part of its goal to educate the public about design in 

 the broadest, most accessible sense of the term, Cooper- 

 Hewitt organized a major exhibition "Unlimited by Design," 

 which investigated the principles of Universal Design, an 

 approach to the design of products, services, and environ- 

 ments that seek to achieve the goal of universal usefulness 

 and access. Exhibition curators selected more than 150 con- 

 temporary design objects that are able to serve diverse 

 groups of potential users, accommodating as many cultural 

 differences, individual abilities, and ages as possible, without 

 physical or intellectual barriers. The criteria for inclusion re- 

 quired that objects be easily available and affordable, as well 

 as understandable through the use of multiple senses and for 

 all levels of experience, knowledge, and skills. The public 

 programming for "Unlimited by Design" included a major 

 conference entitled "Universal Cityscape: Housing for the 

 Age Boom" presented in collaboration with AARP, the New 

 York City Department for the Aging, and MetLife. In addi- 

 tion to its enormous popular response and critical success, 



the exhibition was selected for a Federal Design Achieve- 

 ment Award, one of only 35 projects to receive the National 

 Endowment for the Arts highest honor in design rhis year. 



The Education Department at Cooper-Hewitt signifi- 

 cantly expanded its existing high school programs to create 

 "Design Direction," which seeks to tap the vast professional 

 design resources in New York City to help high school stu- 

 dents prepare for careers in the design professions and 

 provide them with the tools to enter a design school or col- 

 lege. This comprehensive program fully engages students in 

 the design process rhrough sketching, problem solving, 

 model building, project presentation, and critique while 

 working with design professionals in the fields of fashion, 

 industrial, graphic, media, film, environmental, architecture, 

 urban, and interior design. Included with the program offer- 

 ings are "Studio- After-School," an intensive six-parr program 

 in which students work with a design professional to investi- 

 gate careers in design while working on a long-term project, 

 and "Design Career Day," a one-day workshop in which 

 students explore social and environmental issues through 

 discussions and activities with professional designers. 

 "Design Directions" also offers design school and college 

 visits, application and portfolio workshops, design studio 

 visits, and internships with designers. 



Another recipient of a Federal Design Achievement Award 

 this year is the exhibition "Under the Sun: An Outdoor Exhi- 

 bition of Light." Originally displayed in the Arthur Ross 

 Terrace and Garden at Cooper-Hewitt, the exhibition is 

 an exploration of significant contemporary innovations in 

 solar energy technology and theit applications in contempo- 

 rary design. In collaboration with SITES, the Smithsonian 

 Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and the sponsors 

 BP Amoco and rhe U.S. Department of Energy, "Under the 

 Sun" has since begun its national tour with a presentation 

 at the Enid A. Haupt Garden on the National Mall in Wash- 

 ington, D.C. 



Among other exhibition highlights of the past year, 15 

 prestigious department stores in Manhattan — including 

 Bloomingdales, Geoffrey Beene, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks 

 Fifth Avenue, Barneys, Christian Dior, and Macy's — 

 presented an off-site exhibition called "The Window Show." 

 Participating window display designers selected objects 

 from the museum's world-renowned collections as points of 

 departure for their design schemes. Conceived as a way to 

 explore a ubiquitous, yet rarely studied, aspect of design, 

 this unusual collaborative exhibition was seen by hundreds 

 of thousands of passersby during one week in May 1999. 



The exhibirion "Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age: 

 Selections from the Merrill C. Berman Collection" featured 

 more than 200 works from a premiere private collection of 

 graphic material and examined the origins of modern print 

 media in the revolutionary work of early twentieth-century 

 avant-garde artists in Europe and America. The show was 

 presented in partnership with the Williams College Museum 

 of Art, and was accompanied by a catalog published by Yale 

 University Press. 



The exhibition "The Architecture of Reassurance: Design- 

 ing the Disney Theme Parks," organized by the Canadian 



