This 2019 triennial of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York is ambitious, impressive and, above all, thought-provoking. The overriding question it raises: What is design?
This is not your grandparents’ design exhibition of furniture, fabrics, posters, glassware, etc. It seems little concerned with what “design firms” typically do. Much of the design here is the design of research programs and experiments, design not necessarily done for a known market, design at scales from microscopic to regional. Which is not to say people engaged in design won’t learn from visiting it – while enjoying some inspiring sensory experiences.
The projects exhibited are from several countries, and few are more than two or three years old – many of them “ongoing”. It is also notable, reading the triennial’s display labels and catalogue, how often the pronoun “she” occurs.


Many of the exhibits resemble, until one examines their concise identifying texts, conceptual art works in an up-to-the-minute gallery or museum show. There are many videos and objects in motion, some at room-size scale, whose impact cannot be fully conveyed in still images.
One enlightening answer to the question “What is design?” as it applies to this show can be found deep in its catalogue texts. It is defined there “as an interface between abstract ideas in science and technology and real life.”



The triennial will be on view until January 20, except for a couple of nonessential items in the museum’s garden, now being put away for the season. If New York is less accessible to you than the Netherlands, the same materials are being shown at the Cube design museum in the town of Kerkrade, which produced this exhibition jointly with the Cooper Hewitt.
In an apparent effort to ease the intellectual challenge of 62 individual displays, most involving cutting-edge technologies, the show has been organized into seven categories with single-word titles. Some of the exhibits seem as if they might straddle more than one category, or demand another one of their own, but the museum’s seven may be useful in summarizing this mind-expanding exhibition.
The UNDERSTAND section presents the products of informative research, mainly (but not solely) into the processes of life, in all its forms.


Drawing visitors’ attention the moment they enter the museum is the Curiosity Cloud, a constellation of suspended clear glass bulbs. Inside each bulb is a hand-fabricated winged insect – replicating a real one, existing or extinct. As one approaches, the nearest bulbs light up and the insects in them take flight. The experience is meant to elicit thoughts about the diversity and transience of life, rather than conveying hard information.

Other exhibits to be explored in this section:
>Video images of possible models for organization of the cosmos.
>A video of some 500,000 atoms attracting and repelling each other in response to chemicals fundamental to the energy and organization of living things.
>Depiction of human tissues responding to an autoimmune disease that produces bruises all over the body, in images that are ironically pretty.
>The visual record of a designer who fitted himself with prostheses that allowed him to join a herd of goats in the Alps and learn what motivates them, including fine distinctions in the quality of grasses.
The SIMULATE portion includes, for the most part, developments of materials from unlikely sources of potential use by designers:
>An optimal aircraft interior partition based on algorithms that mimic the growth patterns of slime mold plus the shaping processes of animal bones, yielding a partition 45% lighter than current ones.
>A revolutionary airless automobile tire whose form and internal structure is based on coral growth, with treads 3D-printed

from biodegradable materials.
>A clothing material based on the overlapping patterns in the armor of a pangolin (an ant-eating mammal), with alternating translucent and opaque areas, produced by 3D printing.
>An animal-free leather, with the performance of today’s natural hides, created through fermentation-based processing of genetically engineered yeast.
The SALVAGE exhibits focus somewhat more on new uses for existing resources, many now identified as “waste.” Examples include:
>A new clay-like material from plastic waste, inspired by the impact of hot lava on waste material found on Hawaiian beaches.
>Running shoes with uppers made from plastic collected on beaches – five million pairs sold to date.
>Waterproof ink from soot particles recovered from automobile and diesel generator fumes.
>Containers and cords produced from microalgae.
>A variety of textiles and other non-food products made from seaweed.

The FACILITATE displays deal with ways to support and harness natural processes to meet human needs. Accomplishments documented in the exhibition include:
>A dome-shaped “Bamboo Theater,” serving a Chinese village, created locally by directing abundant local growth.
>Cement bricks produced underwater by biological forces similar to those of coral and seashells, in distinctive shapes and colors, without burning fossil fuels.
>A light, easily erected water tower for rural villages that facilitates the condensation of dew and fog and its collection as potable water.




The show’s AUGMENT exhibits document advances in enhancing nature, which humans have pursued for millennia with such techniques as grafting and selective breeding. Among future-oriented examples:
>A variety of materials developed from the biopolymer found in shrimp and other shellfish, produced through 3D printing extrusion.
>A single tree trunk with grafts that yield 40 different fruits.
>A foldable polymer computer chip now being developed that could augment or duplicate the function of organs such as the kidney.
>A glowing silk produced by introducing genes from one species into the genetic material of another.



The REMEDIATE section illustrates ways to address the imbalances in our current ecosystems, reforming today’s procedures, in some cases regenerating past traditions and habitats. Displays include these:
>A two-acre therapeutic forest garden, displayed to you-are-there effect.
>A robotic grip glove using lightweight, flexible components to better approximate natural grip.
>A device for removing microplastic water pollution, using babies’ tights as a net and empty water bottles for flotation.
>A design for a monarch butterfly sanctuary as part of a building façade to be erected on the migration path of the threatened species.
>A system for shorelines that would nurture mangrove seedlings to produce a dense, interlocking natural defense network.



The final NURTURE portion of the triennial displays efforts to encourage existing life – and in one case to reproduce an extinct animal digitally. Exhibits on this theme:

>The design of bioreceptive concrete panels that can support plant life in a variety of building and infrastructure situations.
>Planning and design of an agricultural school for central Africa that is simultaneously a research center and a demonstration farm.
>Digital re-creation of an extinct variety of rhinoceros, which learns to navigate its allotted space as it transforms before the viewer from pixels into a lifelike full-scale moving presence.
Accompanying the triennial at the Cooper Hewitt are changing displays of historical items under the title Nature by Design: Selections from the Permanent Collection. One of the selections now on display, through November 11, is a stunning collection of paisleys, textile products from a variety of places and periods with superb patterns and colors derived from observations of plant life.
A 240-page, amply illustrated with fine color images and with texts detailing all exhibits, is available from the museum at $40.
