For Gretchen Von Koenig, design is a matter of more than just aesthetics—it is a social force, a cultural archive, and a lens that enables us to better understand who we are and how we live. Since graduating from Parsons’ MA History of Design and Curatorial Studies program in 2015, she has built a career around making the history of design more visible and accessible.
Von Koenig began the MA program, which is offered jointly by Parsons and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, with a background in curatorial work and a keen eye for design and its relationship to power and identity. While at Parsons, she deepened her research practice and developed a framework within which to explore design as both an object-based and a narrative discipline. Whether tracing the evolution of household objects or examining the visual codes of mid-century modernism, Von Koenig approached design as both artifact and argument. Her thesis research—centered on postwar American domesticity—set the tone for a practice that is both historically grounded and socially conscious.
Von Koenig also developed her curatorial voice through hands-on collaborations at Cooper Hewitt and other NYC design organizations. Her scholarship brought critical rigor to research on topics ranging from Cold War–era domestic design to contemporary gendered aesthetics. Her research eventually led her into new terrain; today she explores the intersection of the design industry, American capitalism, and the history of technology.
Von Koenig is currently building on her studies at Parsons as a PhD candidate in the Hagley Program for the History of Capitalism, Technology & Culture at the University of Delaware. Her dissertation focuses on the design and use of new kinds of home security and surveillance systems in the late 20th century—a result of new cultural definitions of domestic safety that emerged between 1950 and the 1990s. She has published on topics including the way capitalism has shaped the interior design of rest stops in the United States and deaf-led alarm design and how it is challenging conventional notions of technological innovation. Her work has appeared in Interior Design on Edge, the British Medical Humanities Journal, the Winterthur Portfolio, Metropolis magazine, the Arts and Culture section of the New York Times, and other media outlets.
Von Koenig is now a university lecturer in design history and theory at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and has taught or lectured on the history of interior design, product design, and digital design at Parsons, Pratt Institute, SAIC, and the New York School of Interior Design. She also works as a design director for the nonprofit Art Fair 14C, with a mission of helping working artists make a living by gaining access to larger audiences. In each role, Von Koenig champions design as a tool for promoting reflection and conducting social inquiry. For her, curating is not about putting objects behind glass; it’s about forging connections between people, places, and the designed world we all inhabit.