In its groundbreaking 2007 exhibition Design for the Other 90%, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum presented several dozen products and projects conceived to meet the needs of the estimated 90 percent of the world’s population without access to professional design services. It was one of the first U.S. museums to showcase humanitarian work by architects and designers.
The Cooper-Hewitt is now staging a sequel, Design With the Other 90%: Cities, organized by Cynthia Smith, its curator of socially responsible design. The show’s title alone signals that Smith and her team have taken the next leap in thinking about socially responsible design: eschewing “design for” in favor of the more democratic “design with.” With the Cooper-Hewitt’s stately home undergoing a multiyear renovation, the institution has found a fitting venue for the new exhibition in the visitors’ lobby of the United Nations Headquarters, where it will be on view through January 9, 2012.
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