This new, permanent gallery will offer visitors a window into the Library’s collections, creating a public space where visitors can see firsthand some of the fascinating and special items held by the Library in rotating, thematic exhibitions.

The design team created a central, monumental case that is flanked by projections of a sampling of the Library’s vast film and audio collections. Interactive media, located on a central table, gives visitors an opportunity to connect more deeply with collections.

RWD, collaborating with The Graphics Office, consulted as co-exhibition designer, with a focus on the 3D design of the case structure and interior object displays.

Linear Digital Media Design: Batwin & Robin Productions

Interactive Digital Media: Upswell Studio

Gallery Lighting Design: Anita Jorgensen Lighting Design

Systems Design & Integration: Ford AV

Casework Engineering & Fabrication: Goppion Technology

Case Lighting: Luxam

Charles Dickens: The Key to Character, curated by Wm. Moeck, was shown at the New York Public Library, September 14, 2012 – January 27, 2013.  Co-created with Ann Sappenfield,  our approach was to create a “cabinet of curiosities” – not only of Dickens’ work and work inspired by Dickens, but of props that are all related in some way to his work or philosophy. Who can forget the alligator featured in the bedtime story that young David Copperfield reads to Peggoty!

Charles Dickens: The Key to Character won a 2013 SEGD Global Design Merit Award.

Graphic design: Ann Sappenfield
Curator: Wm. Moeck
Fabrication: New Project LLC

RWD collaborated with Amy Forman Design to create this exhibition that tells the tragic story of writer Irène Némirovsky’s death in the Holocaust, and the perseverance of her orphaned daughters to preserve and eventually publish her international best seller, Suite Française, written in 1942. The exhibition featured many original documents and manuscripts, as well as a lovely salon for perusing more documents and books by and about Némirovsky.

Client: Museum of Jewish Heritage, a Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Graphic Design: Yvette Lenhart

RWD collaborated with Amy Forman Design and IKD to create a new Legacy Gallery experience at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. The project was conceptualized by Ed Schlossberg. It includes artifact displays integrated with videos and digital interactive media. The design approach was to create a contemplative, uplifting, and forward-looking coda to the JFK Library experience. Read more about it in Architectural Digest.

Client: John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
Graphic Design: Paul Montie
Interactive Media: Richard Lewis Media Group
Video: Northern Light Productions
Fabrication: SmallCorp
Graphics Production: Advanced Imaging

RWD consulted to the CMOM staff, providing physical exhibition design and exhibition development. The exhibition, which has traveled around the country, is chock-full of engaging, thought-provoking experiences, using mechanical, electronic, and computer interactives, as well as a Trojan Horse climbing structure. Read about it here.

Client: Children’s Museum of Manhattan
Fabrication: Heartland Scenic Studio

Shared Sacred Sites, the New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Curated by Karen Barkey and international scholars, this exhibition celebrated holy sites revered by Islamic, Christian, and Jewish traditions. 

Graphic design: The Graphics Office

Fabrication: South Side Design & Building

Decorative Painting: Alise Loebelsohn

RWD designed the Kinder Vinkl, Discovery Room, and Welcome Gallery for this wonderful facility that houses over one million Yiddish books, a theater, oral history archives, and both changing and permanent exhibitions.

Client: Yiddish Book Center, Amherst, MA

Curator: (for Discovery Room) Hankus Netsky

Fabrication: New Project LLC

Graphic Design: Shaheen El and John D. Branigan

The Stowe Center team set out to transform the tour of Stowe's historic house into an immersive, participatory experience. Taking advantage of a blank slate made possible by necessary upgrades to the base building, the team made the bold move of converting many of the former reproduction rooms into contemporary, interpretive spaces. RWD worked with the Stowe Center from the start, imagining experiences that would get visitors talking and enthusiastic about making positive change, just as Stowe was.  Some of the interventions were as simple as providing seating for the visitors in period rooms to promote conversation, while others included creating "black box" multimedia experiences.  All aspects of the tour were prototyped and tested for months. 

Stowe Center Project Leads: Katherine Kane, Executive Director; Shannon Burke, Director of Education and Visitor Services; Cynthia Cormier, Project Curator

Graphic Design: Johanna Goldfeld

Fabrication: RH Guest Exhibits

The Friends of Nobska Light, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to preserving the historic Nobska Lighthouse in Falmouth, MA, has hired RWD to create a maritime museum in the keeper's dwelling and visitor experiences in the tower and grounds. To date, we have created an interpretive master plan and a concept design package. Pictured here are concept visualizations completed in July 2023. For more information about the project, visit here. Consider a contribution to help realize the Friends of Nobska Light's vision to create a meaningful and inspiring experience.

Architect: Catalyst Architecture and Interiors

Content: Stuart Fox and Debra Everett Lane

Graphic Design: Stephanie Reyer

RWD designed this ground-breaking exhibition that included rare portraits, drawings, maps, documents, and ritual objects illuminating how 16th and 19th-century artists, writers, activists, and more adopted American ideals while struggling to remain distinct and socially cohesive amidst the birth of a new Jewish American tradition.

Client: The New-York Historical Society

Curators: Debra Schmidt Bach, Ann Myerson, Adam Mendelsohn

Graphic Design: Thiago Eichner, Julia Zaccone

Fabrication: New Project LLC

RWD designed this exhibition that tells this fascinating story, as related in ija.archives.gov:

Jews have lived in Iraq for thousands of years, but when coalition forces entered Baghdad in May 2003 only very few remained. A U.S. Army team searching for weapons of mass destruction in the flooded basement of the Mukhabarat, the headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence services, discovered over 2,700 Jewish books and tens of thousands of documents. The remarkable survival of this written record of Iraqi Jewish life provides an unexpected opportunity to better understand this community. The National Archives is preserving these books and documents and making them accessible worldwide.

During our design research phase, we discovered Das Wohnhaus in Bagdad und anderen Städten des Irak, by Oskar Reuther, a German architectural historian, written in 1910. Reuther documented several houses in Baghdad, including those he identified as being owned by Jewish families.  Thus we were able to enhance the design with legitimate Iraqi-Jewish decorative motifs specific to the era in which Iraqi Jews were flourishing.  At the time, more than 140,000 Jews lived in Baghdad.

The exhibition originated in the O’Brien Gallery at the National Archives in Washington, DC, and traveled to the Museum of Jewish Heritage and is now touring the country.  For rental information, click here.

Curator: Gabriel Goldstein

Graphic Design: John D. Branigan

Fabrication: Kearney & Associates

Under contract to Entolo (now part of PRG), RWD provided design development and contract documents for 30,000 square-feet of exhibits based on a concept design by Hotopp Associates in collaboration with Gwathmey Siegel Architects. RWD was also responsible for the redesign of exhibits within several galleries due to changes to the architectural program. Other tasks included: coordinating exhibition design with architects and other consultants (including lighting, acoustic, digital media, and graphic designers), presentations and coordination with the Content Advisory Committee.

Client: Andrew Crystal, O’Connell Development Group (Owner’s Rep)

Curator: Michael W. Brooslin

RWD designed the 19th and 20th century galleries at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, which opened in May, 2011.  The galleries showcase hundreds of fascinating artifacts supporting a range of topics, including the Amistad, 200 years of Connecticut’s demographics, culture, and manufacturing.  RWD structured the narrative around hearths – then kitchens – and how they evolved through time, changing mores, and technology.

Working with the Franklin's educators, RWD developed and designed A Forest Journey, an 800 square-foot traveling exhibition about tree science, forests, and contemporary and historical uses of wood products. The exhibition has 20 interactive activities.

Nature's Numbers introduces math concepts through games and hands-on activities. All the concepts relate to patterns and principals found in nature. RWD developed and designed the graphics and components in conjunction with the Franklin's in-house developers.

Organized by Michael Inman, Curator of Rare Books at the New York Public Library, Walt Whitman: America’s Poet examines what influenced Whitman’s work as well as Whitman’s lasting influence on the works of others. It includes a treasure trove of documents, Whitman’s personal editions of Leaves of Grass, and representations of contemporary works in various media from the collection of the Library. Currently on view through August 30, 2019 at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd St. and Fifth Ave., NYC.

Graphic Design: The Graphics Office, Angela Voulangas & Doug Clouse

Fabrication: South Side Design & Building

Hand-painted Whitman signature: Alise Loebelsohn

Graphics Production: Full Point Graphics

Exterior Banner: Printhead Studio/Rose Brand

RWD has consulted to the American Museum of Natural History since 2000 on a variety of exhibitions and special projects, including SEGD award winners Einstein and Darwin, as well as The Genomic Revolution and Diamonds.  Recent projects include an interactive earthquake exhibit in the Discovery Room.

Although the exhibits often look simple when completed, they are the end result of a long process that involves determining educational goals, developing activities, evaluating concepts, and finally designing and fabricating the exhibits.  RWD created six activities for Bugs and Other Insects at the SICM, in collaboration with in-house designer Erich Rose and SICM educators.  Pictured here are Pollination, Spider Webs, and Bug Sorting.  In the Spider Web activity, kids learn that spiders sense their prey by the vibrations in the web.  If they pick the right thread, they get their dinner!

Client: Staten Island Children's Museum

RWD designed this traveling exhibition for the National Archives Traveling Exhibits Service.  The Bill of Rights illustrates how America came to have the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and gives a close look at each amendment and how they have protected citizens. Presented in part by AT&T, HISTORY®, Seedlings Foundation and the National Archives Foundation.  For rental information, click here.

Graphic Designer: Thiago Eichner

Fabrication: Kearney & Associates

RWD consulted as Senior Exhibit Designer on a team led by Gerald Eisterhold of Eisterhold Associates, Inc.  The experience includes a time-traveling bus that brings visitors back to the pivotal moment in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.  RWD based the bus details on archival plans from GM, updating them to meet contemporary ADA standards.  The project won the 2008 THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement. 

Client: Rosa Parks Museum and Library Children's Annex, Troy University

Personal Correspondents: Photography and Letter Writing in Civil War Brooklyn

From www.brooklynhistory.org:

“Between 1861 and 1865, over 30,000 men departed Brooklyn to fight in the American Civil War. They left behind spouses, sweethearts, parents, children, siblings, and friends. Personal Correspondents: Photography and Letter Writing in Civil War Brooklyn examines how these Brooklynites remembered and communicated with each other, and how they chronicled the war on the home front and the battlefield. Featuring evocative letters and photographs from Brooklyn Historical Society’s collection, this exhibition brings to life Brooklynites’ everyday experiences during one of the nation’s most transformative times.”

In his review in The New York Times, Holland Carter wrote, “The show is small, one little room with a lot in it, including letters, period souvenirs and printed texts, and with everything readily accessible, as in a well-packed suitcase.”

The exhibition includes two listening stations where visitors can hear readings of poignant letters from family members and soldiers, read by contemporary actor-veterans.

Curator: Julie Golia, PhD

Graphic Design: Thiago Eichner

Fabricator: New Project LLC

Graphics: Berry & Homer

The exhibition brings together 16 of Bingham’s iconic river paintings depicting fur traders and boatmen at work and play on the inland rivers.  More than 40 of his masterful preparatory drawings are arranged in relationship to their paintings, giving an unprecedented view into Bingham’s work process.   The exhibition also features the last surviving panorama of the Mississippi, Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi River, painted around 1850 by John J. Egan.  The giant scroll, depicting 24 scenes in 348 feet, is open to one scene, while a digital monitor depicts the unwinding of the entire scroll.

Client: Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Organized by the St. Louis Art Museum
Curators at the Amon Carter Museum: Shirley Reece Hughes and Nenette Luarca-Shoaf
Graphic Designer: John D. Branigan

Curated by John Rohrbach, this exhibition chronicled the evolution of color photography from a curiosity to today's dominant art form. 

Client: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Graphic Design: John D. Branigan

RWD designed the Welcome Center and interactive activities in the Learning Center, housed on the 3rd floor of the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in lower Manhattan. 

Client: Dorothy Dougherty, Public Programs Director, National Archives at New York City

HBO hired RWD and New Project LLC (fabricators) because we have the perfect mix of museum exhibition design and commercial branding expertise. From the outset, we wanted to treat the props and costumes as treasures – anyone who’s seen Game of Thrones knows that the show’s designers are first rate and that everything has been created with amazing attention to detail and appropriateness to the characters and action.  We approached the exhibition design as if we were designing a museum show: the props are mounted and encased; the costumes (fitted to the forms by Michelle Clapton, GoT’s costume designer) are displayed on roped-in platforms; artwork and images are framed and thematically arranged. At the same time, we emphasized the look and feel of HBO’s brand: brash, sly, sophisticated. We worked closely with HBO’s international marketing team to curate the objects and images and to adjust the exhibition to work in the many venues of its international tour.

Graphic Design: Joe Mayer

Interaction Design: Moey Inc.

Fabrication: New Project LLC

RWD worked with History Associates Inc. and John Branigan Design (graphics) to create a graphic timeline that tells Bristol-Myers Squibb’s illustrious history.   Much of the content was housed in a small museum adjacent to the collaboration space shown in the images.  Seeing that the museum was rarely visited, RWD proposed locating the timeline in a more frequented area and converting the museum into a conference room/artifact display called The Founders’ Room.  In order to keep open sight lines in the collaboration space, RWD proposed keeping the timeline low, as a reader rail following the perimeter of a handrail around the stairs to the cafeteria.

Content Research & Writing: History Associates, Inc.

Graphic Design: John D. Branigan

Fabrication: Maltbie, Inc.

Graphics Production: Berry and Homer

RWD was pleased to provide content development and design of Trust Central, a lobby installation for United States Pharmacopeia in Rockville, MD. USP is an independent, scientific nonprofit organization that creates standards for medicines, supplements, and food in the U.S. and fosters global standard-setting capabilities in the developing world. USP convenes a cohort of international volunteer experts every five years at the Rockville HQ. The organization is a model of consensus building across governments, industry, and academia. The installation celebrates USP’s 200 years of commitment to build trust in medicines.

Interactive Media: Moey, Inc.

Writer: Deirdre Lurie

Graphic designer: Julia Zaccone

Fabrication: Explus, Inc.

RWD designed installations and graphics for selected pieces at JPMorgan Chase's world headquarters at 270 Park Avenue in NYC.  The installations were curated by Lisa Erf, Chief Curator.  The collection includes more than 30,000 objects in 450 corporate offices.  JPMorgan Chase's aim was to provide colleagues and visitors with more context to better understand and appreciate the works.  RWD chose a subdued yet refined approach to complement the interior architecture and let the art take center stage.

Graphic Design: John D. Branigan

The Corocker™, the unique rocking chair and winner of the 2005 Interior Design Magazine Future Furniture Contest, is available for sale through Roger Westerman Design LLC.  Fabricated in laminated ash plywood and stainless steel, the Corocker™ can be upholstered in the customer’s choice of fabric.   U.S. patent US D521,260 S

RWD is entertaining offers from qualified vendors for a licensing agreement.  Please contact the RWD for more information.