Cooper-Hewitt to open in East Harlem next month

Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, is slated to open an East Harlem space next month as the museum’s Upper East Side headquarters undergoes a renovation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move, to 111 Central Park North at Malcolm X Boulevard, comes as part of a campaign to give the museum new venues around the city, according to the Journal. The museum recently held an exhibit at the United Nations and will hold another one on Governor’s Island.

The 1,500-square-foot space will open May 12.

“The key for us is really to keep the presence of Cooper-Hewitt alive during the renovation,” Caroline Baumann, associate museum director, told the Journal.

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The new space, leased for a four-year period, will be called the Cooper-Hewitt Design Center and will hold free workshops for children, teens and adults.

The renovation of the main headquarters, at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue, which is Andrew Carnegie’s former mansion, will increase the museum’s space by 60 percent to 16,000 square feet, the Journal said. It will reopen in 2014. [WSJ]