Housed in the grand Carnegie Mansion on Museum Mile, the Cooper Hewitt is the Smithsonian’s design museum – and a secret weapon for creative families. Kids receive an interactive Pen that lets them collect favorite objects, draw on giant touch tables and even design their own wallpaper, which then dances across the walls of the Immersion Room.
Weekend family programs invite children to sketch, build and solve design challenges with real designers, and the mansion’s leafy garden is a calm Upper East Side escape in warm months. It’s proof that design isn’t just for grown-ups: here, every kid leaves feeling like an inventor.
