Tools: Extending Our Reach

We all use tools—from the moment we wake up until we go to bed. Designed to overcome the limitations and fulfill the desires of the human body, tools are extensions of ourselves and surrogates where humans fall short. Although often equated with technology and engineering, some tools are seemingly simple, poetic gestures; others save time and alleviate the burdens of daily life; still others are game changers that allow us to achieve amazing feats. Offering moments of surprise and connections between seemingly diverse cultures, time periods, and places, the works shown here provide an opportunity to consider tools as quintessential examples of design, and reveal the fundamental role they play in shaping our lives.
Ranging from a 1.85 million-year old stone core chopper to real-time data of the Sun’s surface, the tools in this exhibition span much of human experience and tell a unique story of design. This exhibition is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between Cooper Hewitt and eleven Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers, which generously lent most of the objects, as well as expertise. Their loans are augmented with several contemporary tools that illustrate new areas of research.
Tools: Extending Our Reach is made possible by major support from GE. Generous support is also provided by Newell Rubbermaid, Dorit and Avi Reichental, and Esme Usdan. Additional funding is provided by the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, Facebook, the Ehrenkranz Fund, and Smithsonian Institution funds from the Grand Challenges Consortia.