Tools: Extending Our Reach

Tools, the catalogue for Cooper Hewitt’s reopening exhibition, showcases objects from ten of the Smithsonian Institutions museums to explore how diverse cultures, time periods and multifarious activities provide a means of realizing design’s critical role in understanding our world, and to examine how tools offer insights into scientific, technological, and cultural changes in societies. It shows the interconnectedness of scientist, designer, historian, anthropologist, engineer and artist through design-thinking and problemsolving while also revealing distinct perspectives and methodologies.