The archives of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum span objects from ancient times to the 21st century. Now, that the Museum has completed a digitization project, 92% of the collection has become available online. This ambitious project feeds into the museum’s overarching digital strategy, which is to give visitors as much interactive access to the collection as possible while visiting at the Museum. Since the reopened its doors in 2014 following an extensive renovation and expansion, I hardly visit, as I find the new paradigm clashing with the remarkable Andrew Carnegie Mansion, a Georgian style mansion built at the turn of the 20th century (below in the spring) in an unpleasant way. Now, that the wonderful design collection is available online, it allows me and design lovers all over the world the opportunity to visit the collection virtually, and the system allows to search the objects by origin country, designer, or color. And whenever you do land on an archived object, there’s a suite of meta-data available that highlights design similarities to other objects you likely wouldn’t have considered.
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