Shaker museum logo on a white background.

Shaker Museum

Photo: © Vitra Design Museum / Alex Lesage

Three stacked oval Shaker boxes in brown, blue, and yellow are displayed on a wooden table against a white wooden plank wall and floor.

Installation view. © Vitra Design Museum Photo: Bernhard Strauss

A museum display of wooden furniture, including various chairs, a table, a small round table, and a wooden rack, arranged on a raised platform in a well-lit gallery space.

Installation view. © Vitra Design Museum Photo: Bernhard Strauss

Exhibit display with vintage seed boxes in the foreground and black-and-white historical photographs on yellow fabric walls in the background.

Amie Cunat, 2nd Meetinghouse, 2025. © Vitra Design Museum Photo: Bernhard Strauss

A life-sized structure resembling a small blue house with siding, a window, and a Shaker wood stove stands in a modern white gallery space.
Four vertical blue fabric panels with white handwritten text are displayed side by side on a white gallery wall.
Three stacked oval Shaker boxes in brown, blue, and yellow are displayed on a wooden table against a white wooden plank wall and floor. A museum display of wooden furniture, including various chairs, a table, a small round table, and a wooden rack, arranged on a raised platform in a well-lit gallery space. Exhibit display with vintage seed boxes in the foreground and black-and-white historical photographs on yellow fabric walls in the background. A life-sized structure resembling a small blue house with siding, a window, and a Shaker wood stove stands in a modern white gallery space. Four vertical blue fabric panels with white handwritten text are displayed side by side on a white gallery wall.

The Shakers: A World in the Making at Vitra Design Museum

Shaker Museum is proud to collaborate with the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, by providing 150 objects as well as historical context for its exhibition The Shakers: A World in the Making. Exploring the resonance of Shaker design, the exhibition brings together a wide range of Shaker furniture, architectural elements, tools and commercial goods, paired with newly commissioned works by contemporary artists and designers. The exhibition includes more than 150 original objects, most of which are on loan from Shaker Museum. This exhibition will run June 7 through September 28, 2025 at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany.

For more information read the Vitra press release here and visit the exhibition page here.

Sharon Koomler

Collections Manager

Sharon Duane Koomler is a Shaker scholar and traditional letterpress printer living in upstate New York. She has academic degrees in American Folklore from Indiana University and Western Kentucky University. Sharon has worked at Shaker Museums from Kentucky to New Hampshire as an educator, curator, consultant, and director. She has written and published on Shaker material culture and spirituality, and lectured widely on Shaker art, life, and belief. Sharon has a particular interest in the under-researched social aspects of Shaker life and ways in which Shakers practiced inclusion and intentionality.