Cooper-Hewitt to Launch National Design Week

The museum will offer free admission, host a series of free public programs, and kick off an online design education center.

Meghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 8/25/2006

On October 15, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will launch its first-ever National Design Week, an initiative aiming to elevate the role of design in everyday life. Centered on the museum’s National Design Awards gala, which takes place October 18, the event provides outreach to school teachers and students and partners with design organizations across the country.

Cooper-Hewitt director Paul Warwick Thompson calls National Design Week, which will be sponsored by Target, “a major platform for celebrating the best practices in design education.” During the five-day event, Cooper-Hewitt will offer free admission to all museum visitors and host a series of free public programs, including a panel with the 2006 National Design Award winners moderated by this year’s Design Mind Award winner Paola Antonelli. The museum will also present an educator open house and an after-school teen design fair with a keynote by MTV's on-air creative team. Nationwide, various design organizations and schools will host design events.

Numerous resources specifically geared toward education will be featured on the Cooper-Hewitt web site, which will launch an Educator Resource Center with design-focused lesson plans, chat rooms, and blogs for teachers. These resources aim to help teachers understand how incorporating design thinking and the design process into their curricula can enhance the teaching of mathematics, science, language arts, and history, in addition to art.

The National Design Awards, established in 2000, honor individuals in all areas of design, as well as its patrons and supporters. New this year, a People's Design Award, which will be determined by a public online vote. Nominations will begin online September 17.