Every years NYCxDesign updates its appointment with international design culture, hosting events, exhibitions and installations in its districts involving the most highly acclaimed brands, creative spaces, galleries, showrooms and new talents. From 10 to 22 May the city welcomed over 350 events, in dialogue with designers, architects, journalists and buyers from all over the world.
In SoHo the design night opened the doors of the many showrooms located on Greene and Wooster Streets: Ingo Maurer with his visionary lamps, including La Festa delle Farfalle; Cappellini and its idea of design that promotes expressive freedom, ratified by the concept Cappellini Circus created by Giulio Cappellini with the graphic contribution of Antonio Facco and Andrea Castelli; Artemide, Flos, Tom Dixon, Foscarini, Kartell, Boffi, Moroso and the elegant loft of De Padova in an evening devoted to beauty, concluding with a grand party inside the new Studio Lissoni at 79 Mercer St, where the protagonists were Piero Lissoni and the US CEO Stefano Giussani, the Italian Consul in New York, as well as many designers, architects and journalists.
Shifting to NoMad and the Seventies atmosphere of B&B Italia to honor 50 years of the Up chair by Gaetano Pesce, the Dutch company helmed by Marcel Wanders – Moooi – presented the Liberty Table by Atelier Van Lieshout, the sculptural Plant Chandelier by Kranen/Gille and the brand’s eclectic furniture, wallpaper and lamps. In a combination of fine craftsmanship and design. A creative synthesis that was also on view at the DDC store, amidst furnishings created by great masters like Ettore Sottsass and contemporary furniture, with a striking installation by Jacopo Foggini.
While Baccarat La Maison made its debut in the exclusive setting of the Luxury Living flagship, with a collection that translates crystal into opulent furnishings, Poliform organized a live performance for design night to present collections created by Jean-Marie Massaud, including Kensington, a sculptural dining table; Bellport, an extremely versatile collection of sofas, cots, ottomans and armchairs; and Creek, a set of tables with a very refined style.
Molteni&C narrated its idea of the living area, where not only design but also art is the protagonist, through The Collector’s House: A New Generation of Italian Artists, curated by Caroline Corbetta with works by Gianluca Concialdi, Cleo Fariselli, Matteo Nasini and Valerio Nicolai, immersed in the new offerings of the brand, including the creations of Vincent Van Duysen – the Gillis chair, the Gregor sofa, the Hubert coffee table and the Surf sofa by Yabu Pushelberg.
For an innovative shopping experience, Natuzzi presented the first Augmented Store, a project organized in collaboration with Microsoft and Hevolus Innovation, where the design brand created an immersive itinerary utilizing virtual reality systems.
In Tribeca David Weeks Studio (38 Walker Street) explored color and material through The Obtainable Iris curated in partnership with Areaware, for the launch of the No. 219 Glass Boi Sconce, while R & Company (in the location at 64 White Street) produced two exhibitions (on view until 18 June) on Radical Design and the theme of the table: Dinner, on the lower level of the showroom, pays tribute to the tradition of dining with both historic and contemporary pieces, including chairs, tables and lighting by designers like Sergio Rodrigues, Oscar Niemeyer, Ole Wanscher, the Haas Brothers, Pierre Yovanovitch… Radical Living is instead an experience of Italian Radical Design from 1965 to 1975, with a careful selection of projects accompanied by a feature-length film by Maria Cristina Didero (and Francesca Molteni). Amidst a series of settings invented by Joe Colombo, like the Living System Box 1, the brash lights by Lapo Binazzi for UFO, including Dollaro and MGM, icons par excellence by Gufram stood out, like the Pratone by Pietro Derossi, Giorgo Ceretti and Riccardo Rosso and the Bocca sofa by Studio 65.
Tribeca was also the district chosen by Egg Collective for a new showroom opened on 22 May: for this special event, a new collection accompanies a selection of works by contemporary artists, and creations produced with Callidus Guild and Hiroko Takeda. Among visions of the future and immersive installations, at Greenpoint in Brooklyn the site-specific Urban Imprint by Studio INI – founded by Nassia Inglessis, a designer and engineer living in London and Athens – has been placed in the outer courtyard of the creative space A / D / O by MINI (29 Norman Avenue), reimagining the relationship between people and the city and reshaping it on the basis of movement. A unique experience, open to the public until 2 September 2019.
As happens each year, WantedDesign brought the universe of design together in Brooklyn – at Industry City – and in Manhattan – at the Terminal Stores building – including the experimentation of international design schools, the most refined project ideas, the most famous brands, as well as the partnership with the French Embassy, identifying new talents and highly acclaimed designers. The opening in Brooklyn featured the presence – along with co-founders Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat – of Humberto Campana celebrating 35 years of his career, and the 10th anniversary of the birth of Instituto Campana, as well as Philippe Nigro with a series of glass vases made in USA, Luca Nichetto and Marc Thorpe with the project Murano x Urban Glass Brooklyn, furnishings made in Industry City, and Cappellini with an installation that retraced the history of the brand through icons by Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Alessandro Mendini, Nendo, Shiro Kuramata…
Jasper Morrison was also the protagonist at the Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea (297 Tenth Avenue) with the exhibition Corks, opening for New York Design Week, on view until 29 June 2019. The show explores the first complete series of furnishings made entirely in cork – tables, chairs, stools, bookcases, consoles and even a fireplace… Limited-edition pieces that reflect a particular deviation from the usual industrial production methods of the designer, giving rise to a new collaboration that underlines Kasmin Gallery’s approach of presenting works on the borderline between art and design.
