This week the Museum of Arts and Design commenced the museum’s 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee. With the mayor proclaiming November 1 “Museum of Arts and Design Day” in New York, this is a tremendous milestone for an institution that took a risk back in 1956 by opening the first museum in the U.S. dedicated to collecting and exhibiting works from across the contemporary craft spectrum.

The history of MAD is inextricably tied to that of the American Craft Council, with Aileen Osborn Webb as the founder and visionary for both entities. The museum – formerly known as the Museum of Contemporary Craft (1956 – 1979) before being renamed the American Craft Museum (1979 – 2002) – was under ACC leadership for the first thirty-five years of its existence. An illustrative description of the new Museum of Contemporary Crafts was published in the December 1956 issue of Interiors magazine:  

One of the most endearing examples of recent museum design is the Museum of Contemporary Crafts opened a few doors down from the Museum of Modern Art and a block away from the new Whitney Museum. Housed in a former brownstone remodeled by architect David R. Campbell, it offers a striking contrast to those two far more imposing structures. Though whitened, much glazed below, and provided with an effectively beckoning canopied entry, the façade is warmly attractive rather than awe-inspiring. Inside there is a space that is surprisingly vertical though interrupted by a suspended balcony with a curved edge, and the additional surprise of cream-colored walls, floor, and ceiling, a large expanse of natural brick and a sculptured railing of thick, handsome wood curving expansively up the stairs and around the balcony. The garage-type entrance door of iron grillework, and a handcrafted reception desk are the spectator’s introduction to two exhibition floors, a library, lunchroom, and offices which are pervaded by a gentle mood suited to the works of our craftsmen – weavers, carvers, potters, metal workers – which have at last found a showcase.

While the museum has moved a handful of times in the past six decades, its current home at 2 Columbus Circle is as visually stimulating and adaptive to the display and interpretation of objects and ideas as its original space at 29 West 53rd Street. With the recent opening of exhibitions featuring Peter Voulkos and ACC Fellow Francoise Grossen (both have long associations with the ACC and the museum), there is no time like the present for a visit to this sexagenarian institution.

Throwback Thursday is a weekly series highlighting visuals from the American Craft Council Library's Digital Collections database. Check back on Thursdays for more.