Ted Audio Collective.

Audio Collective.

This is Design Matters with Debbie Millman from Design Observer.com.

On this program, Debbie Millman talks with Caroline Bowman

about her career working in museums

about the

massive renovation of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

and about why the interest of design has surged in recent years.

There's really been an eye-opening moment where people say, aha, this could really improve

the world.

I want to learn more about this and jump in.

Here's Debbie Melman. The original Cooper Union Museum of the Arts of Decoration opened in 1896.

Its goal, to provide a place to study decorative arts collections.

Since then, much has changed.

It's now called the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum,

and its mission is to provide a place to inspire, educate, and

empower people through design.

The museum's biggest change, however, is still to come. After being closed for three years for a major

renovation, the museum is scheduled to reopen in December. Caroline Bowman,

the museum's director, has been in charge of this $91 million

transformation of Andrew Carnegie's Old Fifth Avenue Mansion. Caroline Bowman

joins me today to talk about the renovation and what it

...