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Special Centennial events that are planned throughout the year. On June 22 the Zoo will host an open house for the metropolitan community featuring special activities and musical entertainment. On October 13 and 14 a symposium on the history and future development of zoos will present to the public discussion of the role of zoos within the natural history comunity.

[[underlined]] L'Art de Vivre at Cooper-Hewitt and Its First Closing [[/underlined]]

The Cooper-Hewitt Museum is initiating the U.S. salute to the Bicentennial of the French Revolution with the landmark exhibition, "L'Art de Vivre: Decorative Arts and Design in France, 1789-1989," which is scheduled to ope on March 30. On view through July 16, the exhibition brings together over 500 examples of furniture, silver, glass, ceramics, textiles, wallpaper, couture and jewelry -- created by the great names in French design and manufacturing -- to document this important history and to explore current trends in French design.

For the first time in the museum's history, Cooper-Hewitt closed all its exhibition galleries because of the combined magnitude, scale, and complexity of the installation. The art of living, or [[underlined]] l'art de vivre [[/underlined]], encompasses the patterns and rituals of daily life, as well as the objects that give meaning and purpose to our surroundings. [[underlined]] L'art de vivre [[/underlined]] has special significance in France, a nation whose past and present contributions to the art of living have been exceptional.

Objects selected to illustrate this premise range from gilt-bronze mounted furniture used at the time of Napoleon to the recent innovative furniture and glass designs of Philippe Starck. Brilliant blown, cut, and engraved glass from Baccarat and St. Louis will be seen alongside richly ornamented silver from Christofle, Odiot, and Ercuis. A spectacular variety of wallpapers and textiles, borrowed from French museums and from the permanent collection of Cooper-Hewitt Museum, provide the context for the objects that furnished interiors in 19th- and 20th-century France. Throughout the exhibition, the influence of French taste and skill in the arts of decoration on international design is apparent. Special loans of rare jewels worn by Empress Marie-Louise and unique designs for jewelry by René Lalique are on view; these works, alongside jewels made by Boucheron, Mellerio Dits Meller, Van Cleef & Arpels, and contemporary studio jewelers make this exhibition especially memborable. 

"L'Art de Vivre" was organized by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and was made possible with the generous support of the Comité Colbert of Paris and Air France.

[[underlined]] A French Bicentennial Exhibit Brought by the Concorde [[/underlined]]

On April 16, an Air France Concorde will arrive at Dulles Airport where it will be exhibited to the public for several days as an eventual gift from France to the Smithsonian once the aircraft is out of service. To commemorate the donation, Air France is flying a group of distinguished Americans from the art, political, and industrial worlds to Paris, where they will be joined by French counterparts and flown to Washington on the Concorde. Also aboard the aircraft will be 18th-century copies of two French documents, the [[underlined]] Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen [[/underlined]] and the [[underlined]] Constitution of 1791 [[/underlined]], both of which will be on loan to the Smithsonian for exhibition from the French National