From the Secretary: Smithsonian museums help shine up The Big Apple
Folks often ask me, “How can I visit all the Smithsonian museums?” “Buy a train ticket,” I sometimes answer, “and head to New York.” There, you will find Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the George Gustav Heye Center of the American Indian Museum, as well as a branch of our Archives of American Art, seven Smithsonian affiliates, and Smithsonian magazine’s business office and the Smithsonian Enterprises media team.
Theodore Roosevelt and members of the Smithsonian-Theodore Roosevelt African Expedition, 1909. (From SI Archives RU 95)
New York has made many great contributions to the Institution. Five of the Smithsonian’s 12 Secretaries are from New York—Joseph Henry, Charles Doolittle Walcott, S. Dillon Ripley, Michael Heyman and Lawrence Small. New Yorkers have been among the most important contributors to our collections and museums, including Harry Winston, who donated the Hope Diamond, and Joseph Hirshhorn and Arthur Sackler, who made possible the great museums that bear their names. New Yorker Teddy Roosevelt led the 1909-1910 Smithsonian Roosevelt African Expedition to collect specimens for the new Museum of Natural History, whose centennial we celebrate this year.
This past fall, the American Indian Museum and the Heye Center celebrated four landmark anniversaries: the legislation that created the museum 20 years ago, the 15th anniversary of our first museum in New York City, the 10th anniversary of the collections facility in Suitland, Md., and the fifth anniversary of the NMAI museum on the National Mall.
This horse mask made of porcupine quills, seed beads, brass buttons, feathers and hide by Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux, b. 1969) is among the objects on display in "A Song for the Horse Nation" at the Heye Center in New York.
This year, the Heye Center will open one of its most significant exhibitions to date, the $5.5 million “Infinity of Nations,” funded jointly by New York City, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Leon Levy Foundation and the federal government. This pan-hemispheric exhibition will feature 700 NMAI collection pieces celebrating the vitality and diversity of Native American communities from the Arctic Circle to the southernmost tip of Chile in South America. Currently on view at the beautifully restored Customs House, visitors can see “A Song for the Horse Nation,” describing the role of horses in Native American cultures. The exhibition closes in New York on July 7, but will reopen at the Washington, D.C., museum.
As the National Design Museum, Cooper-Hewitt plays an important role for the Smithsonian. Everything from the knives and forks we eat with to the automobiles and airplanes we travel in have been improved by thoughtful design. Last July, the first lady, Michelle Obama, hosted a White House awards ceremony to honor the 10th-anniversary winners of the museum’s prestigious National Design Awards. First launched in 2000 as a project of the White House Millennium Council, the National Design Awards were established to promote excellence and innovation in design and honor outstanding contributions from the design world, including architecture, fashion, lifetime achievement and sustainable design solutions.
Perceptive Pixel's Multi-Touch Wall. (Photo courtesy of Perceptive Pixel)
Among the many winners honored at the White House were Francisco Costa, Calvin Klein Women’s Collection creative director (Fashion Design); Perceptive Pixel’s intuitive touch surfaces (Interaction); SHoP Architects’ sustainable technologies (Architectural Design); and the New York Times Graphics Department (Communications Design).
Each year, Cooper-Hewitt promotes National Design Week with a series of public programs celebrating the role that design plays in all aspects of daily life. In addition, C-H also provides a range of online educational resources to reach school teachers and their students nationally. The Educator Resource Center features more than 250 lesson plans aligned to national and state standards that demonstrate how the design process can enhance the teaching of all subjects and features discussion boards that provide a forum for educators to exchange ideas. The museum’s Web site also features a year-round “Design Across America” clickable map listing design-oriented events throughout the country.
Florence Knoll Bassett and Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. (Courtesy Eero Saarinen Collection Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.Photo by Scott Hyde)
Designers’ sketchbooks, diaries and business records, along with those of other artists, architects, and photographers, are part of the Archives of American Art collections. Nearly 1.6 million of these documents– dating from the 18th century to the present—can be found through the AAA Web site, including the papers of designer Florence Knoll Bassett, who created furnishings of uncluttered simplicity that instantly evoke the sleek sophistication of New York’s 1960s-era “Mad Men.”
The Smithsonian’s contributions reach far beyond the National Mall and it’s good to be reminded of the role we play in New York’s vibrant cultural community. SI ♥ NY!
Wayne Clough is the 12th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
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Posted: 1 January 2010
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