Get up close and personal with icons of Italian design at Nilufar's summery New York residency

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Lido, a seven-mile barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon, was home to some of the grandest hotels in Europe. It inspired Thomas Mann to pen his novella Death in Venice there in 1912, and, two decades later, was so cinematic that it became the home of the Venice Film festival.

Even if you don’t have plans to visit Venice this summer, New York’s Galerie56 is offering the next-best thing – for design buffs, anyway. Now through 17 October, the Manhattan art and design outpost is teaming up with Italy’s prestigious Nilufar gallery on a new exhibition of design rarities called ‘Nilufar Grand Hotel, Vista Mare.’

The residency (Nilufar’s second stateside presentation with Galerie56) is a continuation of the Milanese collectible design powerhouse’s Milan Design Week show, ‘Grand Hotel’, in which gallery founder Nina Yashar reimagined the Nilufar Depot as if it were a sumptuous Old World resort. The New York version, similarly, uses design treasures to conjure a hotel – only this time, one set in the Lido.

‘I found myself returning to the atmosphere of Venice in summer – not Venice as a destination, but Venice as an idea: a place where architecture, water, light, memory and culture merge into a singular, evocative experience,’ said Galerie56 founder, architect Lee Mindel.

Mindel, working with the Nilufar team, hand-selected objects that conjured a sunny beach scene in the Lido – a place the architect first visited as a teenager. An ultra-rare, Formica-topped Carlo Mollino dining table, first designed in 1956, forms an imaginary lobby, flanked by a pair of minimalist wood ‘Miguelito’ chairs by Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Opposite the entrance, a golden ‘40s-era knotted rug designed by Swedish designer Barbro Nilsson forms an expanse of ‘sand’, while a round Fontana Arte cocktail table and whimsical Gabriella Crespi floor lamp evoke the sun and a cheerful beach umbrella, respectively.

Fans of Crespi, the glamorous multidisciplinary Italian designer who rose to fame during the 1950s, will find many delights here, from a carved-wood table lamp in the shape of a frog; to rattan furniture; to a set of gleaming brass drawers created for Christian Dior; to a futuristic metallic floor lamp that sprouts from the floor like buoys floating on the sea. Other design masters, including Gio Ponti, Martino Gamper and the Italian-born Brazilian designer Lina Bo Bardi, make cameos.

One of the most enticing items in the show is actually one of the oldest – a scroll-shaped mirror and shelf designed by Carlo Bugatti. Created in 1902 – a decade before Mann authored Death in Venice – the piece feels at once of its era and strikingly modern, thanks to a stenciled Art Nouveau iris border; embossed copper and mother of pearl decorative elements; and a small hinged cupboard that opens to reveal diminutive drawers and turned columns evocative of Piazza San Marco.

‘They are works of exceptional craftsmanship and beauty, but they also carry stories, cultural references, and emotional resonance,’ Mindel said. ‘“Grand Hotel, Vista Mare” is ultimately a celebration of those connections – an exploration of hospitality, elegance and the enduring romance of Italian design.’

'Grand Hotel, Vista Mare' is on view through 17 October at Galerie56, located at 240 Church Street New York, NY, USA 10013