Period Rooms

The Brooklyn Museum began collecting and displaying period rooms in 1915. Today, these architectural settings show 17th- through mid-20th-century interiors, focusing on Brooklyn and New York history. Period rooms are complex objects purported to show “the way people lived” at various moments in history. Featuring original architectural interiors and furniture, combined with collection objects, these installations ask us to investigate what is “authentic” and whose narratives are on view—questions that have multiple, shifting responses.