Cooper-Hewitt: National Design Museum

Artists from the “Cooper-Hewitt: National Design Museum” have portrayed several interesting things which must be visited by everyone; I also wish to revisit this museum. Colors and seats: how strange, intricate, and truly amazing. The main focus seems to have been the variations of colors and how they correlate with housing, furniture, mood, and the learning process.
What comes to mind when thinking about the word honeycomb? Well, I know that the picture of the honeycomb cereal pops up in my head. Have you ever thought of honeycombed structured seats?  Tokujin Yoshioka, has made a seat out of paper in the shape of honeycombs. This piece by Yoshioka is called the “Honey-Pop Chair”. Made with layers of tissue thin sheets stacked and glued, the seat had only a single cut. Another seat made by Stephanie Forsythe in 2007, the paper stool was as impressive as the honey-pop chair. This piece was made of polyethylene sheets that “fan out like an accordion.” The amazing part about these two works was that they were actually strong enough to support the human body. Maybe we can find better use out of all these papers we are just throwing away and recycling. A brilliant idea indeed, and one that must be used by everyone!

What is that I see from the distance? Is it a fruit roll-up? As I step closer to the weave, I see the tie-dye colored weave by Jon Tomita. The subtleties of color and pattern are what make up this artwork. The blurring of green with a tint of white was what made up this orange-colored weave. The rectangular weave seems to be flawed in many ways, but in reality, it is perfect. The little streak of white line that separates the top from the bottom, the threads that have been pulled out, and the alignment errors in the edges: Do these things belong? Being put in this museum, this weave, must have been made this way on purpose. Interestingly, the weave is imperfect to a perfectionist’s eyes, but yet perfect to an underachiever’s eyes.

What is the difference between colors on a weave and colors on a house? The colors on a weave helps it become more fashionable whereas colors within a house helps set the mood or setting for the environment. In the museum, there were many wallpapers and watercolor interiors. Different from our plain white walls, these 19th century watercolor interiors have more intricate designs. In the Second Empire Salon, the dark wood with boldly colored carpet was arranged in “functional groupings for comfortable, informal socializing.”

Other houses, such as the one shown in the watercolor painting by William Alfred Delamothe in 1840, has combinations of bamboo, which help create a lively “dialogue between the exotic and the functional.” After taking a deep examination to the picture, the major theme of this housing exhibit seems to be the mood each picture creates. Looking at furniture of different colors, one is able to tell the status and relationship between people and which seat each of them should belong. Another picture within the museum exploits the housing of China. The colors used to separate each apartment or section of apartments from each other is what interests me. The sections were separated into four colors—orange, red, green, brown, yellow, and blue. Each part of the house gives off a different feeling because of the shades that the colors give off.

Learning is essential to a child’s life. The learning process can be facilitated by adding variations of colors to a specific work.  This helps to easily differentiate words from each other as well as numbers from each other. In the artwork, “Sidewall: Alpha Omega”, a design by Joe Martin, the letters of the alphabet were separated into a controlled style of color and pattern. This created an environment that stimulated to not only learn, but to enjoy that learning process as well. In the piece, there were 10 rows with the alphabet written on each row. Every other row had the alphabet flipped upside down, and there was variation of the three colors pink, yellow, and green. Like the alphabet, adding color to the picture of animals can help one identify the animals more easily. In Bellwether’s Design, “Sidewall: Teacher’s Pet,” one can see that memorizing the names of animals can come with enjoyment.

Practicality, complexity, and distinction; This Museum showed it all. If you are someone who likes the complexity of colors, you must visit this Museum because everywhere you go, you will see different uses of them. If you are someone who likes practical things, then you must visit this Museum because there is furniture, and stuff we use in our everyday lives where structure is easily understandable. And finally if you are someone who likes Distinction, you must also visit this Museum because there is a broad range of things to look at, and also things you may have never even imagined to think about, such as the paper chair and stool.