What deserves to be in a design museum?

A new Cooper Hewitt exhibition explores what makes an object worthy of living in the museum’s permanent collection.

At the entrance of the Cooper Hewitt design museum’s latest exhibition, Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection, two objects sit side-by-side. One is a 3D-printed model of a coronavirus particle, 2020; the other is a turquoise lotus-shaped cup, circa 1100 BCE, from Egypt—the oldest object in the museum’s collection.