Last year in Seoul, Minjae Kim presented ten chairs that a carpenter friend had spent a year building and lacquering. The technique was traditional, the kind formally preserved in South Korea and largely absent from contemporary furniture and, for Kim – born in Seoul, based in New York – the first time he had used it in earnest. He had been making furniture for five years, and much of that time had gone into figuring out, on his own terms, what to make of his birthplace.

Kim discovered the US on an exchange in high school. After studying painting and architecture, and completing a stint of military service back home, in 2008 he travelled to Seattle to continue his studies, later moving to New York for an architecture master’s at Columbia University. He spent three years at Studio Giancarlo Valle, then started his own practice from the basement of his old apartment during the pandemic.

His debut in 2021 at LA design gallery Marta catalogued Western typologies, such as a chair adapted from Freud's personal study. These were objects that differed from his understanding of the world, and he made them his by remaking them – for example, by treating fibreglass like cloth, quilting it before coating it with resin. The following year, with his mother, the painter Myoungae Lee, he co-presented an exhibition at Matter Projects in New York: four pieces drew on her work, including a chair inspired by one of her Coexistence paintings.

Press attention after the two shows fixed on his heritage in ways Kim did not recognise in the work itself. ‘If it wasn't me making it,' he says, ‘nobody would say this has a Korean tradition.' His response was the next show, with Nina Johnson Gallery in Miami, titled ‘IYKYK' (If You're Korean You Know). Here Kim made moon jars from fibreglass rope and lights based on ceremonial robes. The Korean references were unmistakable; he has described his spirit at the time as almost punk, ‘I'll show you how to do it.'

Three years ago, an invitation arrived from non-profit cultural foundation Arumjigi to bring the IYKYK approach to a South Korean audience. It softened and matured what had been a somewhat defiant gesture, and led, in time, to the lacquered ‘Seoul' chairs. In the Marta show ‘Phantom-22', in 2025, Kim switched focus again, to LA, a city where a mountain lion, who had crossed the freeways into Griffith Park, settled and died, had become a local icon. Kim's sculpture took the cougar's name, P-22; the phantom of the exhibition’s title referenced ‘the spectres of the city… creatures, ideas, and topographies that define Los Angeles’. The production furniture was made in California, and carried Kim's touch in its cast-resin handles.

Kim has spoken of fighting a lonely fight in New York with references people around him are not likely to recognise. However, he notes that as South Korea itself has become globally visible in recent years, he has had to explain himself less and the gap has narrowed. Going home is still double-edged, he says: he stands out, he tries to blend in. ‘The identity crisis,' he says, ‘has been kind of melting away.' In September 2026, he will show with Marta at Frieze Seoul.

minjae.kim

This article appears in the August 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

For Steffany Tran, the Vietnamese-American founder of New York-based studio Vy Voi, objects become storytellers. Their materials, form and construction reflect longstanding cultural traditions, which she interprets through her own voice. ‘I describe my practice as almost like using a metal detector and finding nuggets in history,' she says.

Tran, whose parents are both refugees, grew up between San José, California, and Saigon, where she spent summers visiting her family. Thanks to her cross-cultural upbringing, ‘I could weave in and out of both of those identities very cleanly,' she says. ‘That openness and tenderness to what those identities are really shaped how I am as a person and my practice as well. I'm not coming from an outsider's gaze.'

After studying industrial design in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tran moved to New York, where she worked in traditional firms including Lippincott and Smart Design. The fast pace and problem-solving briefs were not exactly aligned with her personal interest in the art of making, so she took up ceramics at a local community centre as a creative outlet. There, she focused on perfecting the loose gestural glazing found in Vietnamese pottery. Eventually, she decided to dedicate all her time to creating handmade objects inspired by Vietnamese craft, which she felt were missing from the contemporary design world. ‘It was almost an exercise in this idea of if you can't find it, build it yourself,' Tran says.

Tran's Vietnam trips began to include visits to libraries and meetings with art historians and anthropologists to build her vocabulary around Vietnamese design and craft. She was particularly interested in how contemporary studios continued age-old traditions and reflected different sensibilities compared to East Asian aesthetics. This line of inquiry led her to dó, a textured paper made from tree bark that has been produced in Vietnam for over 800 years. She met one of the few families in the country who continue to make the material, and used it to design lamps, creating oblong shapes inspired by traditional kites, as well as welcoming, rounded silhouettes. Her newest collection derives its form from folded banana leaves, a core ingredient in Vietnamese cooking.

Tran is currently developing a new body of work based on her latest obsession: 17th-century Vietnamese lacquer, which was commonly applied to musical instruments and furniture with decorative inlays. ‘Design has the ability to make the seemingly unknown – and sometimes as a result, overlooked – feel more familiar and distinct,' Tran says. ‘If we can understand and covet Korean moon jars, Japanese joinery or Italian glass, I think we can make space for Vietnamese lacquer art and Lao weaving, too.'

The ultimate Vy Voi project is about expanding cultural vocabulary, democratising important narratives, and affirming human experience through captivating objects. So far the results have been heartwarming. ‘One of the most fulfilling things about doing this is when people message me to say, “I loved hearing the story”,' says Tran.

vyvoi.com

This article appears in the August 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

This article appears in the August 2026, Creative America issue of Wallpaper*, available from 2 July in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

For Keith Haring, New York was a blank canvas, becoming a central piece of his artistic identity after he moved to the city in 1978. It shaped an aesthetic located at the intersection of urban art and activism, which Haring cultivated in the 1980s alongside peers Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. They led a movement that brought art into the public space, in murals or on the subway, a crucial factor for Haring in raising awareness for fraught and urgent topics such as AIDS and education about drugs.

Born in New York, it was an energy that spread around the world, taking shape in an instantly recognisable shared visual language, a fluidity celebrated now with an exhibition, ‘Keith Haring: A World in Motion’, at New York art space 60 White.

‘Haring did not simply travel the world, he entered into dialogue with it,’ says Carlo McCormick, who curated the exhibition in collaboration with Lio Malca. ‘His work pulses with the energy of New York street culture while reflecting the histories, images, and rhythms of the places he encountered. The result is a global conversation, joyful, immediate, and profoundly connected.’

Recreated in 60 White’s multistorey space is San Francisco nightclub DV8, a hedonistic playground of the 1980s-90s that featured murals painted by Haring. This kind of community element is central to Haring’s work, and is also epitomised in his chalk drawings on black paper, which became familiar sights on the New York subway, and the Sister Cities – For Tokyo painting that he created in 1985, marking the friendship between New York and Tokyo, a bold and brilliant tribute to two cities he loved.

Adds Malca: ‘Keith Haring’s work is rooted in New York, but it belongs to the world. This exhibition highlights his ability to connect people through a shared visual language that remains as immediate and powerful today as it was in the 1980s.’

‘Keith Haring: A World in Motion’ is at 60 White, sixtywhite.com

Olalekan Jeyifous is a builder of provocative futures. For ‘Hydricosmic Litanies', a new solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center (6 August 2026 – 3 January 2027), the Brooklyn-based artist, a trained architect and a Wallpaper* US400 honoree, imagined a society in Minneapolis that evolved around the ecology of the Mississippi River, which flows through the heart of the city. Working like an archaeologist discovering and documenting this culture, Jeyifous created digital collages of the cityscape, with highways that once displaced Black neighbourhoods transforming into waterways that sustain aquaculture, travel and housing. A series of 3D-printed sculptures depict the industrial, technical and cultural artefacts that this society produced and deities that protect them.

‘I'm always dusting off the fragments and figuring out who lived there, what they looked like, and what was important to them,' he says.

Meet architect-trained artist Olalekan Jeyifous

Jeyifous' worlds emerge from different parameters and narratives, but they share throughlines: communal societies, close relationships between people and natural ecosystems, and joyful Black life.

For ‘The Frozen Neighborhoods’, which appeared in MoMA's ‘Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America', he conducted a similar excavation of a society in which mobility was restricted. In ‘ACE/AAP', which won the Silver Lion award at the 2023 Venice Biennale, he depicted a world in which Pan-Africanism and decolonisation of the continent were successful, ushering in an era of renewable energy innovation and environmental restoration based on Indigenous land stewardship.

Jeyifous has become one of the leading artistic thinkers of our time. He rejects inevitable conclusions and instead sees alternative futures that invite us all to reconsider the trajectory we're on and what course-corrections might look like.

‘At a moment when so many of our social and ecological crises are also crises of imagination, Jeyifous' work offers something rare: a speculative language equal to the complexity of the world we actually inhabit,' says Taylor Jasper, the curator of ‘Hydricosmic Litanies'. ‘His practice understands that the future is sedimented in the past, shaped by what has been engineered, inherited, broken and remade. He gives us a way to think about culture as something tidal: always moving between what has been lost, what remains, and what might still be made.'

Born in Nigeria but raised in the US, Jeyifous wanted to be an architect from a young age, but was especially interested in cultural critique and using research, world-building and visualisation to provoke conversation. His thesis applied the Yoruba myth of the Abiku child (a spirit that is born to the human world only to die young and repeat the cycle because it does not want to inhabit the painful, unjust world of people, preferring to exist in the idealistic supernatural realm) to postcolonial nation-building and architecture's role in making spaces that support new systems.

Jeyifous identifies with the Abiku child's cycle-breaking. ‘I do not like what has been made of the world,' he says. ‘We could have built a world where different countries and different cultures respect each other.'

Jeyifous uses tools such as hand drawing, photo montage, collage and AI visualisations to design what he calls protopias. Distinct from utopias, which present unrealistic perfect worlds, protopias acknowledge an ongoing project. For this approach, Mabel O Wilson – chair of the African American and African diaspora studies department at Columbia University, and co-curator of ‘Reconstructions' – has called Jeyifous ‘the next Lebbeus Woods', referring to the cult figure who used visionary drawings to drive conversation about politics and ideology. ‘He's deeply committed to understanding architectural representation but using it as a language to point to the kinds of things that are going on socially and culturally,' Wilson says, noting how his work traces its lineage to Afrofuturism and hip-hop sampling.

Until 2004, Jeyifous worked as an architectural renderer. It paid the bills, but it wasn't creatively nourishing, so he decided to take a leap into art-making full-time while completing rendering projects on the side to support his work. By 2016, his public art commissions had grown larger and more frequent, and he was able to stop freelancing. He soon won a fellowship at the Socrates Sculpture Park and prestigious residencies at MacDowell in New Hampshire and the Headlands Center for the Arts in California.

After receiving a commission for a sculpture at Coachella in 2017, his practice took off. He has elevated a New York subway station with glass panels; created an installation at the threshold of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, in collaboration with artist Amanda Williams; and is working on a monument for Shirley Chisholm, who, in 1968, became the first Black woman to be elected to Congress.

Yoruban spirituality is at the heart of Jeyifous' world-building. It's a particular focus of ‘Ancestral Ecologies', an exhibition on show at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden until 25 October 2026. Created in collaboration with New York firm AD-WO, the installation features sculptures made from earthen tiles, recycled glass, material designed to decompose, and garlands inspired by African trade beads. Encountering these sculptures in the garden feels almost like stepping into a quiet moment within one of his verdant renderings.

‘There's a soft touch to environmental justice that he brings to the discourse that I really appreciate,' says Emanuel Admassu, co-founder of AD-WO. ‘We share a political agenda, and the way we think about liberation is not necessarily through big explosive gestures, but folks just tending to plants, folks spending time together with their family, and a lush, green environment.'

‘Hydricosmic Litanies' is on show from 6 August 2026 – 3 January 2027 at Walker Art Center. ‘

Ancestral Ecologies' is on show until 25 October 2026 at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

More on the artist at jeyifo.us

New York artist Jordan Eagles was biking along the East River three years ago when he noticed a man with a sports jersey that read 'The Mets are in our blood.' A lifelong fan of the legendary baseball team, Eagles was struck by the bodily immediacy of the emblazoned slogan.

Eagles swiftly turned to eBay to track down the shirt. As it happened, the merchandise was handed out to blood donor fans at the team’s stadium, Citi Field. After customising the top into a muscle t-shirt for his gym workouts, however, the artist realised he was deprived from truly owning the jersey for what it promotes. 'I could not earn this shirt although I was captivated by my own love of the Mets,' he tells Wallpaper*.

While the artist has been creating works with real animal blood since the 1990s, Eagles himself cannot be a blood donor, owing to being on PrEP, the medication that drastically reduces the risk of contracting HIV. The irony was not lost on the artist, and is the focus of a powerful ongoing exhibition, 'Bases Loaded', on view at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.

The show features 13 of the same Mets jerseys with blood of an undetectable HIV-positive man splashed across them. The grouping of orange and grey uniforms echo the total number of defensive and offensive players on the baseball field, yet here, devoid of perspiring bodies, they become drenched in another form of corporeality. The exhibition also features nine mixed media resin sculptures shaped in the form of a home plate – the base players must touch in order to score a run.

Gay men in the US have long faced stigma around blood donation. After decades of a ban on gay and bisexual men’s choice to donate blood, the FDA eased the restriction in 2023 and began imposing questions about sexual history to any potential donor. The questionnaire, as Eagles notes, still has a bias towards anal intercourse and HIV status. PrEP users cannot donate unless they stop taking the pill for three months.

The politics of blood has long concerned Eagles who has utilised real blood of gay men in myriad forms. From soaking vintage Superman cartoons with blood at an exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum to projecting close-up blood blotches at institutions such as the Getty and High Museum of Art, the artist has made the public intimate with the spine-chilling tactility of the life-giving fluid.

The show at the Brooklyn multimedia art space, however, holds a deeper personal bond for Eagles. Besides Eagles's own blood and that of the anonymous donor, some of the resin sculptures contain the blood of the artist’s father. As the figure who exposed the artist to Mets fandom and a symbol of familial blood lineage, the inclusion embodies the son’s reckoning with his own reality and his innate need to fit in. Inside a series of resin sculptures, meanwhile, the artist has suspended family photos, in which everyone wears Mets T-shirts, in blood. Other works contain needles, face masks or baseball cards blend with the densely red fluid.

'This project invites the public to think about policy but it is also more broadly about identity, belonging and what it means to be be a part of something,' Eagles says.

Besides the immediate tactility of the works on view, the slipperiness of semantics unifies them and the seemingly disparate realms of sports and sexuality. From the show’s suggestive title to baseball sayings such as 'first base,' 'innings' or 'receivers,' the linguistic flirt between the game and gay sex imbues a playfulness to the otherwise heavy subject.

'Blood in language is often used to be divisive as well, but I am also thinking about my own life and ways of belonging to a community and wanting to be a part of a team that ultimately you are not permitted to be a part of,' Eagles says.

'Jordan Eagles: Bases Loaded' is on view at Pioneer Works through 9 August 2026

Felice’s newest New York restaurant opens at one of Flatiron’s most privileged corners, where Fifth Avenue meets 26th Street beside Madison Square Park. Set inside a 21-storey neo-Gothic building completed in 1912, the site gives the family-run Italian brand a dining room with unusual scale, daylight from three sides and a strong connection to the street.

Wallpaper* dines at Felice Flaitron, New York

The mood: go big and come home

Since opening on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 2007, Felice has grown to fourteen locations across New York, Connecticut and Florida. Designed by local studio Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture, Felice Flatiron is arguably the brand’s most architecturally ambitious opening to date. The room boasts 18ft ceilings, windows on three sides and a Fifth Avenue presence that changes with the light. Afternoon sun cuts across amber banquettes, pale tablecloths and warm timber.

‘We wanted the space to feel instantly familiar but elevated in every detail, Tuscany in its materials, New York in its energy,’ says Enrico Bonetti, co-founder of Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture.

The design works through proportion, material and cathedral-like drama: custom Italian oak millwork crafted in Florence, Chianti terracotta sourced from Tuscany, deep red blinds, leather seating, soft pendant lamps and a 30ft illuminated wine wall. At the centre is Felice’s largest bar to date, wrapped in Grigio Versilia marble and engineered to be the restaurant’s social anchor.

The food: all-day entertainment

The menu stays close to Felice’s Tuscan roots: seasonal ingredients, regional recipes, signature pastas and dishes made for sharing. New to Flatiron is the Il Toscano Plate, with rotating salumi, pecorino, olives and crostini, alongside a tableside tiramisu cart and an interactive amaro station.

Wine remains central. The by-the-glass list champions small producers, with Italian bottles joined by selections from Spain, California and elsewhere. A ‘Back to Natural’ section brings in low-intervention wines, while the cocktail programme leans full dolce vita: Dirty Martini Spritz, aperitivo drinks, and a nightcap menu running from Amaro Shakerato to Affogato Martini.

Felice Flatiron is located at 220 5th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States

FOOD was a cultural hub and restaurant in the early 1970s on the corner of Prince and Wooster streets in SoHo, New York, where it blended the rituals of dining with an experimental spirit. Robert Rauschenberg and Donald Judd crafted performative dishes while the restaurant’s co-founder Carol Goodden turned soups into paintings. In its three-year life, the restaurant saw its other cofounder Gordon Matta-Clark turn bones into necklaces. Today, a norm-pushing edge is a memory in this downtown pocket of soaring lofts and posh boutiques, but the New Museum remains something of a hub for the bygone avant-garde spirit. The institution’s recent doubling of its exhibition space by OMA has finally made possible an essential that many of peers have long enjoyed: a restaurant.

Oberon opens this week (7 July 2026) with 90 seats inside the 60,000 sq ft expansion, in the form of a self-contained black box on the ground floor. Brooklyn-based restaurant group The Oberon operates the eatery with a menu created by chefs Julia Sherman and Ali Ghriskey. The hospitality group’s founder and managing partner Henry Rich sees an opportunity in the New Museum’s alchemy of heritage and a downtown sensibility. ‘The museum straddles the world of New York institutions and edgy galleries around here,’ he tells Wallpaper* and says the non-profit holds a ‘unicorn position with a stature and a commitment to most forward-looking art’.

The non-collecting museum has held a pivotal role in career-making exhibitions for many global artists, yet it had lacked a proper restaurant throughout its 49-year history – in its first eatery, cork anchors the visual statement. Without a direct contact with Bowery Street, the interior wraps its guests as a concentrated experience in which the dominant material appears in five different ways, both in recognisable and distinct qualities.

OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu and associate Jake Forster who oversaw the expansion planned the pocket inside the overall metallic mesh and steel-heavy building to, as Shigematsu puts it, ‘complement the rest of the series of gallery spaces’. Besides FOOD, their mood board included the community gardens peppered throughout SoHo and Lower East Side. ‘We looked into communal spaces that have brought artists together and conceived the restaurant as its own volume,’ he says. A generous potpourri of plants outlines the opaque window, which lets museum-goers notice diners’ silhouettes within the silver-leaf cork exterior. Inside, Portuguese company Sofalca created black cork surfaces through a process in which the negative-footprint carbon-absorbing material is heated to extreme temperatures and blended with resin to yield large monolithic blocks. A series of textural cork domes, created by CNC milling, form overhead booths with serrated cork around their perimeters. An intensely textured cork ceiling in the centre is suspended above 20 or so two-seater wooden tables designed by Minjae Kim.

The Brooklyn-based designer says the main challenge in his first restaurant commission was to implement his vision into a fully-baked vision. ‘I responded to the inventive use of cork with texture and warmth,’ he says. For the 30ft bar, he summoned the technique of sanding into the grain of ash wood for a distressed rippling texture, with a lacquer finish. Kim also designed nine quilted fibreglass pendants through a process of running woven fibreglass in a sewing machine for an ornate sculptural effect, in contrast to the sturdy cork-led interior.

While enjoying meals such as a classic hamburger and martini pairing, art-loving diners can curb their visual appetite with Ian Cheng’s video installation behind the bar. The New York artist, known for his contemplative live simulations and real-time animations, here delivers dancing visuals, alive with a moody energy. In an homage to FOOD’s Fluxus roots, avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson provides a farewell to diners in the form of poems she has penned for the wrappings of parting chocolates.

Steps away from the surrounding neighborhood’s bustle, the hermetic culinary experience interprets cork’s thick hug into sculptural accents, complemented by a textural use of wood and a generous wash of greenery. ‘We are privileged to cater to a community that already likes to hang out,’ says Rich.

The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club was established in 1962 to soothe fans still reeling from the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. In pursuit of larger audiences and new stadiums, both beloved franchises relocated to California after the 1957 season, closing the chapter on New York’s so-called golden era of baseball.

From the outset, the Mets’ emblem (largely unchanged since its debut)was conceived as an act of reconciliation. Its dark blue field and baseball motif nod to the Brooklyn Dodgers, while the Dutch orange and interlocking 'NY' on the logo’s first version evoke the New York Giants’ branding. The result was a carefully crafted homage.

Selected from hundreds of entries in a public competition, the design was created by Ray Gotto, a prolific cartoonist best known for his syndicated baseball strips Ozark Ike and Cotton Woods. The former Navy illustrator who was living in New York City at the time approached the brief with an understanding of what was truly at stake. Though the Mets would play in Queens (as rival New York Yankees were based in the Bronx) Gotto sensed that an emblem that could unite the entire city was needed.

To foreground the Mets’ name, Gotto drew a symbolic New York skyline using a medley of landmarks from various boroughs. From left to right, he included a silhouette of a church spire, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations headquarters. A suspension bridge anchors the composition, all of it contained within the circular frame of a baseball. Originally rendered in black and pink per the logo design contest guidelines, the palette was later revised to blue, orange, and white at the team’s request—colours that also echo New York City’s tricolour flag.

In the decades since, the Mets have cycled through owners, managers, stadiums, and uniforms, yet Gotto’s skyline, stitched in blue and orange, has endured. More than branding, the Mets logo has become a fiercely guarded emblem within the 'Mets Nation.' In 2014, eagle-eyed fans noticed a subtle alteration to the logo on the club’s social media accounts. They decried that the United Nations building appeared to have been mysteriously altered to resemble the Citigroup Center tower. Whether a sneaky marketing gesture or a digital prank, the change vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. The Mets denied making any revisions to the official mark.

'The Ray Gotto design makes sense,' says Walter Bernard, former art director of New York, Time and Fortune, and a longtime Mets fan. 'Most baseball fans love their teams’ history and traditions, and the Mets logo carries so much tradition that change simply isn’t necessary.'

The logo first appeared in print in November 1961, about five months before the Mets took the field. It fulfilled its purpose brilliantly: fans swiftly bought into the new franchise and snapped up tickets to games. Gotto was paid $1,000 (around $11,000 today)—a respectable fee at the time, but a bargain in retrospect for an enduring mark that helps sell millions of dollars of merchandise for one of baseball's most valuable franchises.

By its sheer ubiquity, I ❤️ NY may be the world's most appropriated logo. Some 50 years after it was first introduced, New York state's official brandmark has become an all-purpose shorthand for allegiance and affection for anything, anywhere.

Milton Glaser and the I ❤️ NY logo

Curiously, I ❤️ NY was born during a time when there was little to love about New York City. Designed by Milton Glaser in the mid-1970s, the logo originally served as the graphic punchline to an advertising campaign that helped rescue the city from the brink of bankruptcy. Desperate to arrest its ballooning fiscal deficit, city officials funded a campaign that could lure tourists back to the Big Apple. Wells, Rich, Greene, helmed by the trailblazing ad executive Mary Wells Lawrence, produced it; songwriter Steve Karmen wrote an earworm of a jingle, and Glaser was asked to create a logo.

Working pro bono without a contract, Glaser quickly sketched a mark consisting of the tagline spelled out in all caps and divided between two black lozenge shapes. The city accepted it without changes. But a few days later he had another thought.

Doodling on the cab ride from his home to the office, as he often did, Glaser drew a red heart paired with the letters 'I' and 'NY' rendered in a friendly font. He chose American Typewriter – a slab serif with a certain 1970s flair – and worked with longtime studio assistant George Leavitt to slightly tweak it. Decades before the proliferation of emoji, some worried that the rebus-like construction would confuse people. Nevertheless, New York City adopted Glaser's second proposal, and soon made it the official tourism logo for the entire state.

Copycats emerged almost immediately. What makes I ❤️ NY remarkable is its portability. In Glaser's personal files one can find knick-knacks bearing variations of his logo – I ❤️ Macedonia, I ❤️ Ngorongoro, I ❤️ Rhodes – sent by friends and fans. Fashion brands like Chanel, Coach, Kate Spade, and Raf Simons have produced collections around the logo, while bootleg trinkets emblazoned with variations on I ❤️ NY abound. The state ultimately secured a copyright in the mid-1990s and earns tens of thousands of dollars in licensing fees each year.

A heavy legacy

Over the decades, every article about Glaser tended to circle back to I ❤️ NY. Its widespread popularity became his calling card and also a kind of creative prison. 'It's something I wish people would forget,' he said in a 2016 New York Times profile. 'I've done other things.'

Indeed, the 2009 National Medal of Arts honoree had achieved many other things, including co-founding New York magazine, designing beautiful restaurants, and producing hundreds of beloved posters, album covers and book jackets. Glaser’s abecedarium of logos includes marks for Brooklyn Brewery, DC Comics, and Italian gelato maker Sammontana. Yet nothing quite matched the universal impact of I ❤️ NY – perhaps only his iconic 1966 Bob Dylan poster counts as a distant second.

Glaser, who passed away on his birthday in 2020, never lost sight of the logo's original purpose as a civic symbol. I ❤️ NY, at its core, is a cri de coeur for resilience. In the aftermath of 9/11, Glaser appended it with the words 'More Than Ever', added a burn mark where the Twin Towers once stood, and gave the grieving city a ready-made banner. The same poster re-emerged in shop windows and food carts during the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2023, New York City felt compelled to modernise Glaser's logo. The woeful ‘We ❤ NYC’ rebrand was swiftly dismissed as a flop. The flood of complaints about it confirmed one thing: ferocious affection for Glaser's original. In an era when brand loyalty is elusive, the logo conceived half a century ago remains, somehow, irreplaceable.

miltonglaser.com

This article appears in Wallpaper’s August 2026 Creative America issue, available from 4 July, in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

Talk of New York's real estate scene currently centres on 262 Fifth Avenue, a new residential tower rising on one of Manhattan's most famous streets. Standing 860 feet and 52 storeys tall, the project marks the first New York collaboration between Meganom and Norm Architects, with Five Points Development Group behind its delivery. Italian design house Molteni&C was tapped to furnish the interiors; today, Wallpaper* takes a look inside.

In a skyline increasingly defined by its density, 262 Fifth Avenue takes a more restrained approach. The building comprises just 26 full-floor and duplex residences, allowing generosity of space to become its defining luxury. That sense of deliberation continues in the architecture itself: each home is column-free, creating uninterrupted living spaces – and uninterrupted views of Manhattan.

Norm Architects, responsible for the interiors, describe each residence as a ‘sanctuary in the sky’ – places of calm that sit above the city's tumult while remaining intrinsically connected to it. The Copenhagen studio draws on its understated vocabulary of natural materials, fine craftsmanship and muted tones, producing spaces that feel subtly luxurious rather than ostentatious.

Molteni&C contributes two of the home's defining architectural elements: the 'Prime' kitchen and the 'Gliss Master Filo Door' wardrobe system. Installed throughout every residence, the kitchen combines natural stone and wood veneers which harmonise with the palette of tactile, understated finishes. Its pared-back geometry lends the living spaces a soothing architectural rhythm, balancing New York's metropolitan sensibility with the material rigour of Italian craftsmanship.

The partnership builds on Molteni&C's longstanding history of collaborating with architects and developers on landmark residential buildings. At 262 Fifth Avenue, the brand showcases a level of craftsmanship that has room to breathe, helping the tower stand apart in an increasingly homogeneous landscape of Manhattan luxury developments.

Juergen Teller’s portrait of Yves Saint Laurent, made in Paris in 2000 when the designer was in his mid-sixties, is a striking photograph. Furthermore, it speaks to the great fondness Saint Laurent maintained for the medium and its practitioners throughout his life.

‘He was interested in each new generation,’ asserts the photography historian Simon Baker, co-curator of the new exhibition, ‘Yves Saint Laurent and Photography’. ‘There are all these incredibly flattering images of him looking beautiful and elegant by people he loved, then Juergen comes along at a late part in his career and life… It’s so brave and wonderful as an older man. The image is iconic.’

‘Yves Saint Laurent and Photography’ at New York’s International Center of Photography

At the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, where the exhibition, which is organised in collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris and Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent, runs through 28 September 2026, Teller’s portrait is blown up to gigantic proportions and affixed to a bubblegum-pink wall. ‘It really makes me smile,’ says Baker. ‘I think it’s fantastic.’ Originally commissioned for 2025’s Rencontres d’Arles (an accompanying book, published by Phaidon, was released in September), the exhibition has been revised and now includes a more in-depth exploration of how New York, to which Saint Laurent first travelled in 1957, featured in the designer’s life. Baker, additionally, is joined by curators Nastasia Alberti and Clémentine Cuinet, deputy head of collections and head archivist and head of photography, respectively, at the Musée.

Separated into two parts – a more traditional white cube space and a second ‘cabinet of curiosities’-styled room – the ICP exhibition comprises nearly 300 photographs and archival objects from the 1950s through to the 2000s: portraits of Saint Laurent (such as Irving Penn’s photograph of the then 21-year-old, newly installed as the head of Dior), photographs of the collections – among them Helmut Newton’s standout shot of model Vibeke Knudsen in Le Smoking – as well as magazines, contact sheets, and personal Polaroids that detail how Saint Laurent engaged with the medium in both a personal and professional capacity (and how these intertwined). In a first for the Musée, there are no physical garments on display, a conscious decision to both honour the venue and explore the possibilities of the archives.

‘Yves Saint Laurent is, for sure, the most photographed fashion designer, in the sense that he identified himself very much with the brand,’ says Baker, highlighting one of the show’s core threads. ‘Even before he founded his own house, he worked with Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, and then through his career he had long-term relationships with people like Helmut Newton, William Klein, Horst P Horst.’

‘He cared deeply about art and saw beauty in many things,’ adds Alberti, characterising the genesis of this relationship, which only became more prominent when Saint Laurent met and began working with Pierre Bergé, after which his likeness became properly integrated with the house. ‘The two together were absolute geniuses at marketing,’ Alberti observes, ‘really, really smart.’

Across the Atlantic, Saint Laurent was privy to what Baker describes as ‘the very best of the New York scene’ – indeed, in 1972 he sat for Andy Warhol, while Penn and Avedon were both based there. ‘New York is really, really important for the history of Yves Saint Laurent, because it is where he had his first exhibition at The Met, the retrospective in 1983,’ says Alberti. ‘It was the first time there was an exhibition about a living fashion designer; it had never happened before because fashion design was not seen as art.’ Organised by Diana Vreeland, who had become a consultant for the Costume Institute in 1971 following her dismissal from Vogue, the exhibition would attract almost a million visitors.

Perhaps most overwhelming, however, is how Saint Laurent shaped the way contemporary fashion houses operate, both with regard to adopting an in-house figurehead, and how visual media is employed. ‘Nowadays, almost all designers have behind-the-scenes photographers – Saint Laurent was doing that in the 1960s, so there’s a particular sense of photography being right there in the DNA of the house,’ says Baker. ‘We see Juergen Teller shooting for Marc Jacobs, Vivienne Sassen with Louis Vuitton, but Saint Laurent, again, was very pioneering in photographers having these intimate and extended relationships with brands. It’s impossible now, to imagine a major fashion house not having that attitude, and that integrated sense of photography. Saint Laurent was very early.’

‘Yves Saint Laurent and Photography’ is at the International Center of Photography in New York, until 28 September 2026

Dae Lim started his apparel and lifestyle brand Sundae School based on a cheeky proposition: ‘What if God was Korean and smoked weed every day?’

Eight years later, that concept – a label that would showcase Lim’s rich Korean heritage with an ethos that was equal parts streetwear and stoner – has evolved into a cult New York-based e-commerce brand, known for its distinctly-styled relaxed-fit hoodies, chinos, batik bandanas and, yes, mochi edibles.

The opportunity to open a bricks-and-mortar store offered something more: to cater to Lim’s community. ‘I knew [the location] had to be Chinatown,’ Lim says. ‘The Asian American diaspora started here. We wanted to plant a stake in the ground where our roots are.’

He found the perfect spot in a compact, 450 sq ft storefront on Hester Street, once home to the studio of minimalist artist Sol LeWitt. Conveniently, Dae’s husband Nohar Agadi is an architect, who cut his teeth at Foster + Partners before starting his own studio, Nohar’s Ark.

Much like the garments and accessories Lim and his team design (‘We’ve aimed to distill the hanbok costume tradition in wearable, modern uniforms,’ he says), the flagship is sleek and pared back, with selective embellishments. In particular, Agadi chose to reference the Haeinsa temple in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, a Unesco World Heritage List site famous for its collection of Buddhist writings, in his design. At the temple, 80,000 texts are kept in a wooden shelf system, an element Abadu referenced when developing the store’s modular aluminum display system.

The open structure, kit-of-parts seamlessly incorporates screw-in hanging bars and racks. Depending on the use of the flexible space – playing host to a community gathering, launch, or the screening of a World Cup football match – this solution can be easily reconfigured. Above, a grid of light-strip fixtures, developed with lighting designer Frank Favia, mimics the paper lantern canopies that cover traditional temple courtyards.

‘The interesting thing about [Korean temples’ spaces] is that they’re laid out to take visitors on a journey,’ Agadi explains. ‘A series of gates lead them from a secular into a spiritual and sacred world. Here, we're expressing this condition with a layering of different, carefully selected materials, helping people transition off of the street.’

While the room-within-a-room’s modular display system is made up of hyper-engineered aluminum components, the interior is wrapped in light pink (reminiscent of the Korean hibiscus flower) floor-to-ceiling curtains that also help to section off two changing rooms and conceal offices.

Lim, Agadi and co-architect Andy Kim tapped Seoul-based talent Hyunhee Kim to create a series of custom artworks, based on Sundae School’s logo, a clever amalgam of the Korean national emblem emblazoned with the word Ddul (weed in Korean). The insignia carries through the shop on from a large backdrop panel to a custom display table. The same five-petal shape adorns frosted acrylic panes inserted within the shelving system.

Reinterpreted traditional Korean doors imbue the store with an additional layer of architectural resonance. They also help to conceptually welcome in customers and visitors – creating a new type of sacred space for Sundae School’s thriving community.

Sundae School is located at 117 Hester St, New York, NY 10002.

Since the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off, it is only to be expected that the world has gone a little football crazy. New York has become a new stomping ground for soccer fans, and to accommodate them, Crosby Studios has designed ‘Home of Football: Home & Away’ (tickets here), a pop-up exhibition created in collaboration with cultural platform Home of Football and arts collective Air Afrique. The exhibition is designed to serve as an interactive space that offers a new perspective on the sport’s enduring legacy.

Football memorabilia is reimagined in New York exhibition

Founded by Harry Nuriev, Crosby Studios is best known for championing a transformative spirit within spaces – from Clive Christian’s London flagship to a reimagined Parisian espresso bar. Located at High Line Nine in New York’s Chelsea Gallery District, the new exhibition is no different. Divided into six chapters, the showcase looks at the codes of sport, art, design, and fashion and how they intersect.

What marks out this exhibition from others is the new viewpoint provided. Designed through Nuriev’s architectural lens, the space is graphical, with acoustic elements to enhance the impact of the presentation. The colour palette alludes to a football field, with hues of mint green, while circles and curvatures integrated within the space nod to the shape of a football and the markings on the pitch.

Memorabilia was selected and curated by Air Afrique, with highlights such as Pelé's 1958 Brazil World Cup jersey and Ronaldo artifacts from Brazil's 2002 World Cup triumph. The presentation also includes more than 60 other match-worn jerseys, as well as trophies, and photographs of defining footballing moments.

Coupled with the display of archival pieces is a new retail concept, The Crosby Shop, a platform to present some of Nuriev’s favourite brands – among them Baccarat, Nothing, publisher Rizzoli, men’s grooming brand Obayaty, and olive estate La Terra Di Neena – including some that will be available in the US for the first time. The shop is also home to Balira Coffee, a café pop-up from former Real Madrid star Sami Khedira, a World Cup-winning player for Germany in 2014, who will make select appearances.

Says Nuriev, ‘This concept is about the clash between football, fashion, and art culture. It is a form of cultural transformism, translating the energy and visual codes of football into a new media format that feels open and accessible, not only to football fans, but also to people discovering this world for the first time. The green is a digital version of the football field colour, and the circles reference both the ball and the centre point of the field, becoming symbols of movement, gathering, and play.’

'Home of Football: Home & Away' is located at High Line Nine, Hudson Yards, 507 W 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 ,until 19 July 2026. Tickets are available here

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

In a waterfront enclave of Red Hook, Brooklyn, a loft in the historic New York Dock Building served as an industrial landmark, a cabinet of curiosities sourced from across the globe, and – above all – the home of interior designer Laurie Blumenfeld and her husband, Robert Russo. Conceived and executed by Blumenfeld's studio, the space takes raw industrial architecture and coaxes it toward warmth and worldliness.

Built in 1910 as a warehouse for the New York Dock Company, the building arrives with all the industrial splendour one might hope for: soaring beamed ceilings, 13ft metal-framed windows, and original concrete columns still bearing traces of graffiti from the building's years as an unofficial street art museum. The structure was reimagined into residences in 2018.

When Blumenfeld arrived, she set out to build on its spirit, treating the home as a kind of autobiography rendered in objects. The result is part gallery, part travel journal, part family heirloom – filled with pieces old and new from South Africa, India, Greece, Peru, Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey and Italy, each woven naturally into the interior rather than displayed as trophies.

Among the most compelling of the apartment's stories: a visit to the Basquiat and Warhol exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris led Blumenfeld to commission a large-scale artwork from artist Alex Mitrecey for the living room. Around it, other vignettes unfold – a ceramic bowl from Umbria, a soapstone sculpture from Cape Town, chairs by Brazilian designer Juliana Vasconcellos alongside ‘Wassily’ chairs, Marcel Breuer's 1925 Bauhaus classic.

Recreate the mood

The neutral palette – black, taupe, ivory, gunmetal gray and white – serves a dual purpose: canvas for the eclectic objects on show, and complement to the building's industrial character. Powder-coated black metal echoes the factory-style window frames and threads through the kitchen, office and bedroom. Cerused wood, sheepskin, travertine and glass bring warmth, while colour arrives deliberately – through large-scale art and a striking antique concave mirror in the primary bedroom.

Then there are moments that depart from the script entirely. The powder room, draped in Farrow & Ball's ‘Paean Black’ in limewash and anchored by an asymmetrical vanity in Cipollina Ondulato Rosso marble, is moody and immersive – a world apart from the airy openness of the living areas.

Yet for all its gallery-like qualities, there is no mistaking this loft for anything other than a home. Russo loves to cook, and the bespoke kitchen storage system – a sculptural centrepiece that immediately draws the eye – was designed with dinner parties in mind. Each room also carries an original piece designed by Blumenfeld's studio: a personal signature that runs through the whole.

Red Hook, Blumenfeld says, is ‘a place where past and present coexist effortlessly’ – and the loft holds true to that: industrial and intimate, globally sourced and place-specific.

'Everything about Diane was creativity personified,' said Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather trilogy, on hearing news of Diane Keaton’s death in 2025. Keaton had played Kay Adams Corleone in the films, one of several defining roles in a career that spanned more than five decades, across acting, directing, and writing. Her performances in Annie Hall, which earned her an Academy Award, Reds, Father of the Bride, and Something's Gotta Give established her as one of the defining screen presences of American cinema. Off screen, her oversized tailoring, hats, and menswear-inspired silhouettes cemented her status as a style icon, while her New York Times bestselling books California Romantica (2007) and The House that Pinterest Built (2017) extended her influence into architecture, interiors, and design.

This summer, the Diane Keaton Collection, a four-part auction series organised by Bonhams in partnership with The Fine Art Group, unfolds across New York and Los Angeles throughout June. Comprising more than 550 lots, the sales assemble the artefacts of Keaton’s life, from iconic wardrobe pieces and film memorabilia to the books, artworks, and domestic objects that populated her homes. Here, we highlight eight standout lots that offer insight into the people she loved, the films she made, the homes she built, the styles she cultivated, and the objects she chose to live with.

David Wojnarowicz’s Untitled (Buffalos) (1988-89). Estimate: US $25,000-35,000

Diane Keaton’s collection extended beyond fashion and film memorabilia to artworks displayed throughout her home, a 1926 Spanish-style house in Beverly Hills designed by Wallace Neff. A photograph by David Wojnarowicz appeared in the master bedroom alongside Western furniture and graduated Bauer pottery, reflecting the eclectic sensibility that shaped her interiors.

Created between 1988 and 1989, Untitled (Buffalos) followed a visit by Wojnarowicz to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where he encountered a diorama depicting Plains bison driven over cliffs. Having recently been diagnosed with AIDS, Wojnarowicz used the scene as an allegory for the government’s response to the epidemic. The falling buffalo became a symbol of abandonment and collective loss, themes that recurred throughout his work as he confronted homophobia, censorship and mortality. A lifelong admirer of California and the American West, Keaton also collected landscapes by Maynard Dixon and Ed Mell. Her photography book collection is also represented in the sale, with first editions by William Eggleston and Annie Leibovitz, among others.

Two framed mixed media collages by Diane Keaton. Estimate: US$1,000-1,500

Keaton’s interest in collage dates back to childhood. In her memoir Then Again, she recalled visiting the 1961 ‘Art of Assemblage’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art with her family and becoming captivated by the boxes of Joseph Cornell. ‘As soon as we got home, I decided to collage my entire bedroom wall,’ she wrote. The fascination was encouraged by her mother, Dorothy Hall, who filled 85 journals with scrapbook entries, photographs and collaged pages. Keaton carried the practice into adulthood, spending evenings making collages while trying to establish herself as an actor in New York and appearing in Broadway productions, including Hair. ‘I did a lot of collages. I couldn’t stop myself,’ she said in 2022. ‘I was really playing around with fantasies all the time.’

An original Annie Hall script. Estimate: $2,000-$4,000

An original mimeographed script for Annie Hall appears in the auction, bound in a red cover and inscribed ‘UNTITLED FILM SCRIPT / 4/15/76’, alongside two loose pages marked ‘NEW ENDING’. The 133-page document captures an earlier stage in the development of a film that would become one of the defining works of 1970s American cinema. Released in 1977, Annie Hall was the fourth collaboration between Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, earning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Keaton.

The film also crystallised an aesthetic she would carry long beyond the screen: ties, oversized tailoring, hats and menswear reworked into something unmistakably her own. Allen developed the character with Keaton specifically in mind, drawing loosely on aspects of her personality and their earlier relationship. Even the title combined her childhood nickname, ‘Annie’, with her surname, Hall. Recalling the experience in her memoir, Then Again, Keaton wrote: ‘Filming Annie Hall was effortless… no one had any serious expectations.’ Allen encouraged her to ‘wear what you want to wear’, helping create a wardrobe that would become one of cinema’s most enduring style references.

A souvenir programme from the original Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam. Estimate: US$200-300

Before Annie Hall and long before her status as a Hollywood fixture, Diane Keaton starred as Linda Christie in the original 1969 Broadway production of Play It Again, Sam. Included in the sale is a souvenir programme from the production, together with a publicity photograph from the 1972 film adaptation, in which Keaton reprised the role opposite Woody Allen and Tony Roberts. The production ran for 453 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre and earned Keaton a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. It was during auditions for Play It Again, Sam that Keaton first met Allen, with their professional collaboration quickly developing into a romantic relationship. Play It Again, Sam was the first film Allen made with Keaton. The pair went on to collaborate on eight films between 1971 and 1993, including Annie Hall, Sleeper and Manhattan.

A pair of Louis Vuitton Star Trail ankle boots. Estimate: US $800-$1,200

A pair of black glazed calf leather Star Trail ankle boots by Louis Vuitton, offered in their original box and marked size 41, accompanied Diane Keaton to some of her most high-profile appearances over the past decade. She wore the chunky lace-up boots while accepting the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2017, styling them with a black turtleneck, belted silhouette, textured white jacket and her trademark wide-brimmed hat. Keaton later described the evening to The Hollywood Reporter as ‘the wedding [she] never had and the retirement party [she] never wanted’. During the ceremony, Al Pacino told his longtime collaborator: ‘You’re a great artist. I love you forever.’ The same pair reappeared at the premiere of Poms in Los Angeles in 2019, the Ralph Lauren show during New York Fashion Week in 2023, and numerous other engagements.

A Baron Hollywood’s Hat Maker black felt bowler hat with black ribbon. Estimate US$400-US$600

Few accessories are as closely associated with Diane Keaton as the black bowler hat. This example, by Baron Hats, was worn repeatedly throughout her life and career and belongs to a category of object that has become inseparable from her public image. The connection dates back to Annie Hall, where Keaton’s adoption of menswear-inspired tailoring and bowler hats helped establish one of cinema’s most enduring style signatures. In an interview with Vogue, Keaton said she owns around 40 hats, naming a plain black Baron bowler as her favourite: ‘I’ve had it for so long. It’s good – it’s dependable.’ Elsewhere, she described hats as ‘the final touch to a great outfit’. In her 2014 memoir, Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty, she wrote: ‘My hair is my hat. And my hat is my hair.’

A handwritten letter and inscribed sheet music for All I Have to Do Is Dream from Al Pacino. Estimate: US$300-$500

A handwritten note from Al Pacino and sheet music for ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’, inscribed ‘To Di / Love AL’, sit among Diane Keaton’s personal papers. The accompanying letter reads: ‘Diane. Andy, me and Don went to a restaurant in Mondello. I will call you with the name of the joint. Sit tight. Be right. Don’t fight. Love Al, Your friend.’ Keaton and Pacino met while filming The Godfather and maintained an on-and-off romantic relationship into the 1980s. Keaton later described him as ‘the most entertaining man’ with ‘the most beautiful face’. Writing in Deadline following her death, Pacino said: ‘She lived without limits, and everything she touched carried her unmistakable energy,’ adding that she was ‘unstoppable, resilient, and above all, deeply human.’

Ed Ruscha signed book. Estimate: US$200-$300

Keaton’s sale includes several artist books by Ed Ruscha, among them a signed edition of Twentysix Gasoline Stations, first published in 1963. The publication comprises black-and-white photographs of petrol stations along the route between Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, with captions noting each location. The first stop was Bob’s Service in Los Angeles; the last, a Fina station in Groom, Texas. The lot also includes Nine Swimming Pools and Guacamole Airlines, alongside Sol LeWitt’s Modular Drawings. Keaton and Ruscha were romantically involved for a period, although little was made public about their relationship and both largely kept it out of view, unlike her more widely documented relationships with Al Pacino and Warren Beatty.

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In our monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

June is one of the busiest months in the culture and design calendar, with our editors firmly on the ground to keep you abreast of every development as it unfolds. From 10 June, our 3 Days of Design blog goes live with minute-by-minute dispatches from Scandinavia's most celebrated design festival. Back home, London’s art and architecture scenes are open wide for London Gallery Weekend and the London Festival of Architecture, offering an unmissable concentration of exhibitions and events.

Elsewhere on the summer roster: theatre, illustration, and – of course – football’s World Cup. Our US editor may be flying the flag stateside, but make no mistake: it’s coming home.

The showcase: 3 Days of Design, Copenhagen

Rosa Bertoli, global design director

Some of the team are off to Copenhagen next week for the 14th edition of 3 Days of Design (our live blog will be a real-time diary of everything we see in town). Throughout the city, Nordic and international brands and studios will be showcasing new pieces and design ideas, and I look forward to the conversations surrounding Scandinavian design and how it has evolved through the eyes of contemporary global creatives.

Having grown from a small four-brand event in 2013, the fair now promises countless highlights. I can't wait to discover the larger-than-life (seven-metre-tall) pavilion by Iittala and 'Tableau' with Hydro, celebrating Alvar Aalto's vase on its 90th anniversary, as well as returning and topical group exhibitions including 'Bread and Butter' (focusing on bathing culture from Japan to Denmark and beyond) and 'Værktøj' (exploring the use of tools within the design practice, in this case the sewing machine). Wallpaper's own Japan editor, Jens H Jensen, a Dane, is co-curating an exhibition with OEO Studio, titled ‘Japanmade Vol.1’, exploring Japanese design through a Danish lens – one of many Japan-focused exhibitions in Copenhagen during the fair.

The production: 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', National Theatre

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

I’ve booked tickets to the National Theatre to see Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a lavish new production directed by Marianne Elliott that revives Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ scandalous tale of sex, power and manipulation. Set amid the opulent salons of pre-Revolutionary France, the story follows the Marquise de Merteuil (Lesley Manville) and the Vicomte de Valmont (Aidan Turner), two master manipulators who wield seduction as a weapon in a ruthless game of influence.

As a devotee of the period drama, I’m looking forward to seeing the 18th-century extravagance of Les Liaisons brought to life on the stage of the National Theatre’s brutalist edifice. I’m equally curious to see how Elliott’s production reinterprets the story for modern audiences. Its themes have resonated for centuries; the question is whether she can sustain that legacy.

The art event: London Gallery Weekend

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

During the first weekend of June, more than 120 galleries open their doors across the city as part of London Gallery Weekend. As well as many exhibitions launching to coincide with the weekend, there is a free programme of talks, tours, events, performances and parties taking place across London, bringing together contemporary artists including George Rouy and Roni Horn with established figures such as Francis Picabia. I am particularly looking forward to Anne Imhof at Sprüth Magers – more on this to follow in our July issue, which goes on sale later this week. Check the full weekend schedule here.

The listening bar: Record Bar Moon Shine, Osaka

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

I've just returned from a two-week trip around Japan, where many evenings were spent in vinyl bars, lingering over glasses of umeshu with my partner and striking up conversations with the passionate owners behind these independent establishments. Our favourite was a tiny haunt called Record Bar Moon Shine, almost hidden on the fourth floor of a narrow building in Osaka. Its owner inherited a collection of 5,000 records from his father and has devoted much of his life and spare time to keeping the bar alive. Inside the space, bathed in the crimson glow of a giant pachinko parlour across the street and carrying the faint scent of cigarette smoke, we were introduced to a world of city pop – the glossy, exuberant soundtrack that came to define Japan in the 1980s. The only way to bring a small piece of that experience home was to leave with a stack of records under my arm. They have already become the soundtrack to my June.

The festival: London Festival of Architecture

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

June is a very architectural month here in London – the London Festival of Architecture 2026 launched on the first of the month, and I am excited to hear from Jayden Ali at his keynote lecture. Meanwhile, the programme, 400-entries strong, is sure to have something for everyone. Discussions, exhibitions and installations abound. Personally, I have a soft spot for activities that allow me to bring the family along at weekends (Lego Challenge, here we come). It gives me an excuse to keep the child in me happy, too. The Serpentine Pavilion 2026 will also be opening its doors to the public on 6 June, while further away, Spain's Concéntrico festival, which kicks off on 18 June, will keep those of us who can attend busy with its own interpretation of architecture and the city. See you on the other side...

The day out: Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration

Léa Teuscher, sub-editor

I’m looking forward to the opening of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in Clerkenwell, London. I’ve walked past the brick walls of the New River Head building many times (it’s just next to Sadler's Wells Theatre in Angel), and always wondered what it looked like inside. From Friday, we will be able to see how the derelict waterworks engine house and coal stores have been transformed by Tim Ronalds Architects into the UK’s only space dedicated to the art of illustration. It’s a wonderful project, celebrating not only the genius of Blake’s dynamic and whimsical drawings, but also an often overlooked art form. The inaugural exhibitions focus on Blake’s theatrical works, queer comic-makers, and the kaleidoscopic illustration of Welsh-Sri Lankan illustrator Murugiah. I can’t wait to visit the free reference library and look for cockatoos in the boutique.

The sporting event: the World Cup

Anna Fixsen, US editor

My football career ended sometime circa 1999, when I accidentally gave a kid a concussion during a scrimmage. However, with the World Cup landing stateside beginning 11 June, I am ready to re-immerse myself in the sport – sans head injuries. Fortunately, New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is aiming to create a ‘World Cup that belongs to New Yorkers’, not only throwing free fan events across the five boroughs, but also reserving 1,000 affordable tickets to lucky locals for when the matches arrive at MetLife Stadium in a few weeks. I’ve thrown my name in the hat for the cheap tickets, but if Lady Luck isn’t on my side, you’ll catch me watching the games in Brooklyn Bridge Park or a sunny rooftop watering hole. #Goals – in more ways than one!

Fanciness is something that’s resonated with Jeremy Anderson since he was a young boy growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the 1980s. He remembers his mom gingerly removing cube-shaped crystals that hung off the family chandelier and, with characteristic Midwest practicality, placing them in the dishwasher for a cleaning. He remembers noticing the silky damask patterns on mattresses and yearning to play dress-up with dolls.

‘Boys don’t play with dolls,’ Anderson recalls of the prevailing attitudes of the time. Now, with a solo show of lighting, furniture, mirrors and vessels on view in New York with the prestigious London design dealers Gallery Fumi, ‘I am giving myself permission to tap into that energy in a way I really couldn’t,' he says.

The show, titled ‘Held In Light,’ is Anderson’s largest solo presentation to-date. He works primarily in ceramics, a medium he discovered while still in high school. After co-founding the renowned lighting studio Apparatus, Anderson returned to ceramics about six years ago, a career transition that’s allowed the W*400 designer to plumb even deeper creative impulses.

Anderson’s work takes familiar objects and furnishings and transforms them into something more otherworldly and whimsical. Rotund stoneware vessels are ornamented with blooming petals and fins that give them a friendly, creature-like sensibility. Ceramic chandeliers and lamps are ornamented with ceramic beads, a move that evokes traditional lighting while giving them a delightful anthropomorphic quality, like a swinging fringe haircut.

‘I am very inspired by classic forms and shapes. It’s about putting my creative voice on those shapes and making them feel more modern and weird,’ Anderson says.

Gallery Fumi’s founders took notice. For co-owner Sam Pratt, who grew up in Sierra Leone, it was the hand-made quality of Anderson’s work and their universal ability to stir up memories that gave it a particular resonance. ‘There’s an unusual sculptural thing [inherent to the work]. I also see something African about them,’ he says, adding ‘Just as important is Jeremy the person.’

For the ‘Held in Light’ show, Anderson has amped up the scale of his work with a selection of 21 pieces that include a dining table, cabinet and a daybed. Each features a bronze frame, cast to appear at once delicate and brawny, and embedded ceramic slabs painted in Anderson’s signature, meditative stripes.

One of the most eye-catching pieces is a new daybed that blends fantasy with a certain pomp. It features a French horsehair mattress covered in a silky Zak + Fox fabric (a gussied up version of a traditional mattress) and bolster cushions fashioned from a 19th-century homespun fabric.

The works are displayed as part of Gallery Fumi’s New York residency at Gallerie 56, an exhibition space in the podium of Herzog & de Meuron’s ‘Jenga’ tower at 56 Leonard Street. In a full circle moment, Anderson would often drive past the building when commuting to his studio in Brooklyn.

‘So much of what I make is tapping into memory and being able to play in a way I didn’t feel like I was able to when I was young,’ Anderson explains.

‘That’s why the making process and being hands-on is so important to me,’ he adds.’ That’s what it’s all about.’

'Held in Light' is on view at Gallery Fumi's New York residency at 56 Gallerie through 3 July, 2026.

With past mentors including Marc Jacobs, Paul Fortune, John and Christine Gachot, and Gabriel Hendifar, interior designer Casey Kenyon was exceptionally well placed when he launched his own studio in 2019. Drawing on the experience gained from these creative titans, the New York-based designer’s most recent project is a confident expression of his own style and sensibility – made possible by clients who were 'game, open and trusting,' Kenyon says.

This one-bed apartment in an Upper West Side co-op was designed for a couple – Ted, a screenwriter, and Josh, an agent – who split their time between Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. The seventh-floor apartment’s predominantly north-facing rooms are bathed in soft light throughout the day, though the relatively low ceilings required careful consideration of scale and proportion. Some of the larger pieces the couple had hoped to bring from their Upstate home – a substantial sofa, for example – simply proved too imposing. 'We taped it out on the wall, and I was like, this is never going to work,' recalls Kenyon, who instead focused on lower furniture to create the impression of greater ceiling height.

Several key pieces were custom designed out of necessity, owing to the city’s notoriously narrow hallways and limited elevator capacities – 'a proper New York challenge,' as the W*400 designer puts it.

The sofa had to be delivered in pieces, while the television cabinet was also assembled on site. Crafted in walnut, the cabinet features teal gloss doors that neatly fold into side pockets and is finished with vintage handles sourced from Kenyon’s ever-evolving collection. This, he explains, is one of his tricks for softening the feel of a new object. 'Vintage hardware takes away the newness in a way that’s special,' he says. 'A little bit of patina goes a long way.'

Additional bespoke furniture creates a dining nook opposite the kitchen, where a plaid Zak & Fox wallpaper and a mounted Picasso plate are designed to catch the eye of anyone seated on the banquette. 'You can sit there as one person with your laptop or to have takeaway, or as six people when entertaining,' Kenyon says.

Upholstered pieces throughout the apartment introduce a carefully calibrated range of hues selected so they feel 'complementary, but don't match,' the designer explains. 'I typically like complex colours, which can change and shift during the day. While the apartment is mostly off-white, the bedroom is a different shade to the living room because the light is different in each.'

The couple’s impressive art collection played a key role in bringing personality and richness to the interiors. Among their existing works, a grid of nine Andy Warhol Polaroids hangs in the dining room alongside a trio of black-and-white photographs by Diane Arbus. Although the collection is not intentionally queer-focused, Kenyon notes that several prominent queer-identifying artists appear throughout the home, including Hugh Steers, Peter Hujar and Nick Hoover.

Perhaps the most fortuitous acquisition, according to Kenyon, was the Genieve Figgis painting in the living room, which serendipitously echoed the colours of the custom burgundy rug. 'We were constantly looking for something to go above the sofa, even after the room was done, and then the Figgis just came to be, and it was perfect,' he says.

Another fun discovery rests atop a tall Art Deco plinth in the bedroom. Kenyon came across this small bronze figurative sculpture at a Paris flea market and, after an enthusiastic early-morning text exchange with his clients, promptly purchased it – before discreetly sneaking it home in his suitcase. 'If you were looking for it on the internet, you would never find it,' the designer says.

Overall, Kenyon sought to create a dialogue between harder lines and materials and softer, more 'frouffy' embellishments, allowing these relationships to slowly reveal themselves as the eye moves through the apartment. A floral vase placed beside a black steel side table, or the glass-topped Guy Lefevre coffee table positioned opposite a crewel, brush-fringed cloth, are among examples.

'I think we did a good job here of playing with softness and rigidity,' Kenyon says. 'Those sorts of things are lovely and important, and feel real.'

'Institutional restaurants are not generally considered places that are very sensory, romantic and interesting. They tend to be a very intentional sidebar to what is the main focus, which is academic and cultural excellence,' observes Robin Alesch who, with her husband Stephen, co-founded the New York design studio Roman and Williams.

The duo recently partnered with Sotheby’s on Marcel, a new continental restaurant in the auction house’s new-ish home in the iconic Breuer building on Madison Avenue. 'The fact that it was Sotheby’s, and not a museum, gave us the freedom to create an eco-system where all of that can happen in one place,' Robin adds.

It also meant that the duo was immersed not only in the design of the space, but in creating the menu, the branding and even the rotating selection of art on the walls and design objects in vitrines. (Robin recounts a moment when she wished there were a Chagall to hang in the private dining room, only to be told, 'We have one!')

This is not the Alesch’s first go with either Sotheby’s or the restaurant business. Two years ago they designed an installation of works by the Nabis that were offered in Sotheby’s New York sales. And it’s been almost a decade since they debuted both their restaurant, La Mercerie, and their shop, Roman and Williams Guild, in the same SoHo space.

The 'restaurant-in-a-shop' idea appealed to Sotheby’s top brass. 'I think they really appreciated the intersection between art and objects in the Guild and about a space doing more than one thing,' Robin notes.

But Marcel presented an entirely different challenge: how to bring warmth, movement and intimacy into one of New York’s most imposing brutalist interiors without diminishing its force. 'The building is this big, powerful being, but we’re not afraid of it,' says Stephen. 'We love this beast. We want to dance with it.'

Wallpaper* dines at Marcel

The Mood: Brutalism gets a softer side

The dance they chose was less go-go and more stylized social dancing of the mid 1960s, channeling the tension between weight and lightness that defines Breuer’s work, while simultaneously 'standing up to Breuer and bringing something new,' Robin adds.

The strategy was a variation of divide and conquer, as one portion of the restaurant is landmarked, and the other is not. A unified narrative was achieved through materials; Robin points out that Breuer used bronze, walnut and granite, so the team' 'really lucked out,' (and added silver and glass to the mix). Walnut walls and ceilings envelop guests in the non-landmarked portion of Marcel, which includes the bar, set with vintage Bauhaus stools and vintage Breuer lamps, and the kitchen.

Early in the design process, the designers made a fortuitous discovery: Breuer had designed custom hardware for a model house he built in MoMA’s sculpture garden in 1949, but it had never been put into production. Turns out that E.R. Butler (a specialist in architectural hardware) had the original drawings in its archive, made the pieces for the restaurant and also available on their site).

The food: Madison Avenue, à la française

Marie-Aude Rose, who also oversees the menu at La Mercerie, is chef-partner at Marcel; she, along with executive chef Juan Moncalvo, created a menu descried as 'continental with a French emphasis.' Which translates to dishes including escargots and côte de boeuf but also a chicken paprikash (rumoured to be based on Breuer’s mother’s recipe) and a 'Que voulez-vouz' section where one can choose their cut of steak, or preferred fish, and have it prepared to their liking. Best yet: diners can select an accompanying wine from Sotheby’s own cellar (although those who order a martini will find it served in a weighty brutalist coupe of sorts). Marcel is also home to La Mercerie Patisserie, a bakery and café open all day and offering coffees, pastry, tarts and other treats, to stay or take away.

Retail plays a discrete but significant role in Marcel. Much of the art on the walls is for sale, as are the items displayed in vitrines. If diners fancy the chair they are sitting on, their brutalist martini glass, or one of the table lamps, they’re all part of the Marcel collection available through Roman and Williams (said collection also includes a bar cart, credenzas, a large selection of glassware and lighting).

Truth be told, this may be the easiest way to 'experience' Marcel as the restaurant is booked weeks in advance. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the highly competitive nature of New Yorkers who absolutely must get to the buzziest new place before their friends. But it’s also because Marcel is very of its environs (it can be viewed from the street, and is especially cinematic at night) and feels like it has always been there.

'The building hasn’t had a powerful [restaurant] inhabitant, a committed inhabitant, in a long time,' Robin notes, adding 'We really wanted to make something committed.'

Marcel is located at Marcel 945 Madison Ave New York, NY 10021. Book here

Alexandre de Betak launched his modular sofa, ‘Le Takbe’, during NYC x Design, in collaboration with Paris gallery Pierre Augustin Rose's New York space in SoHo.

Over the past three decades, under the banner of his Paris-based creative agency Bureau Betak, de Betak built a global reputation for masterminding some of fashion’s most spectacular shows – from Dior’s delphinium-covered hill in the Louvre’s courtyard and the ethereal Berluti show, where shoes floated through the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, lifted by oversized white balloons, to Saint Laurent’s glittering spectacles beneath the Eiffel Tower. After founding the company in 1990, he produced more than 1,500 runway shows, installations and events that blurred the boundaries between fashion, architecture and art.

In 2023, de Betak opted to take a step back from the company to concentrate on his personal dreams as a designer and artist, creating ‘spaces of radical stillness where the viewer is not spectator but subject’. Working out of a mews studio in London’s Marylebone, his obsession with the tension between ancient and contemporary, low-tech and high-tech, remains constant. Recent works include a large-scale light installation coinciding with Frieze London 2025, and Chashitsu Hikari Schürli, a site-specific light sculpture unveiled during Gstaad Art Week in February 2026.

Alexandre De Betak’s sofa for Pierre Augustin Rose

The origins of the 'Le Takbe' modular sofa are deeply personal for de Betak, who first designed it for his own homes around the world, conceiving it for an informal way of living – for lounging, gathering, playing, and meditating, without hierarchy or prescription.

It is formed of a low platform, on which cushions can be freely arranged and rearranged, adapting to the rhythms of daily life. This first edition with Pierre Augustin Rose introduces removable backrests, offering a more structured seating configuration while preserving the openness of the original. The design is available in two sizes – a conventional rectangular sofa or a more expansive square shape – and two fabrications, either wool or linen, and it can be configured as a daybed, sofa, or something in between; a small landscape within a room, shaped by whoever inhabits it.

Founded by Pierre Bénard and Augustin Deleuze, who were later joined by Nina Rose, Pierre Augustin Rose draws from the legacy of 20th-century masters while remaining resolutely anchored in the present. Their work reflects a refined balance between memory and invention, with form, proportion and materiality approached with precision and restraint. Rooted in a passion for singular environments, Pierre Augustin Rose creates collections that are both bold and nuanced, where furniture becomes a vehicle for atmosphere as much as function. At its core lies a clear ambition: to project a distinctly French sensibility into a contemporary, international context.

pierreaugustinrose.com

As a kid growing up in the Kensington neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Roberto Lugo didn’t have access to art classes in school. What he did have, though, was a drive to create, an ambition he expressed by tagging abandoned buildings throughout Philly. Later, he discovered clay and began merging his Puerto Rican heritage and love of hip-hop culture with this millennia-old medium by creating graffiti-covered classical pots and urns.

Fast forward two decades and you can find the W*400 artist’s work in collections ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Today, you can also find his work out in the open, thanks to a special public art commission from Madison Square Park in New York. The installation, called ‘Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)’ sees two monumental sculptures placed in the verdant urban respite – a 20-foot-tall urn and a 15-foot-tall fire hydrant.

The urn is modeled on an antique Herend design, first designed for Queen Victoria in the 19th-century. But in lieu of butterflies and flowers, Lugo has decorated it with symbols and portraits honouring his Puerto Rican heritage. Most notable are the eight luminaries depicted on the sides of the urn, from music superstar Bad Bunny to US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Lugo’s own parents. Exuberant, graffiti-inspired motifs wrap the sculpture from base to finial, including images of hibiscus blooms, vines, chickens, dominoes and billowing Puerto Rican flags.

For Lugo, it was important to present representations of his community on a vessel historically reserved for the privileged. ‘We are an incredibly resourceful people,’ Lugo says of Puerto Ricans. ‘We come from a history of our ancestors being enslaved, of colonisation, of all these social issues that created a history of poverty. For me this installation is a celebration of us overcoming.’

At the eastern edge of the park is a towering fire hydrant, painted in a bright orange-red and tagged with graffiti. For Lugo, the sculpture has special significance – as a kid, his father would crack open the neighbourhood fire hydrant so kids could play and cool off during a sweltering summer day. But for him, the symbol holds deeper meaning, a metaphor for a wider state of emergency that marginalised communities may find themselves in – especially as the US celebrates its 250th anniversary.

It all comes back to expressing the joys and struggles of the Puerto Rican experience – a narrative that is distinctly American. ‘The artwork that I'm most attracted to as a person is something that tells a story,’ Lugo reflects. ‘A professor of mine has this old adage: The more personal a story is, the more universal it becomes.’

‘Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)’ is on view through 6 December 2026 in Madison Square Park

Amid a White House pressure campaign to quell diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, and restore ‘truth and sanity’ to US history, the Smithsonian Institution is quietly clapping back.

Last week, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. restored impeachment language to a portrait of President Donald J. Trump. And Monday evening in New York, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum hosted a jubilant gala to celebrate the 2026 National Design Award recipients.

The honourees, chosen in 10 different categories by an independent jury, marked one of the most diverse and politically-engaged talent pools in recent memory, a roster that includes Thought Matter, a branding agency who’s redesigned the US Constitution; Laura Kurgan, a digital designer whose data visualisations have shed light on topics including mass incarceration; and Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, whose work strikes alliances across the US-Mexico border.

‘[The winners] understand, as you all do, if you're in this room, that design is everywhere, and that it is, in fact, not neutral at all,’ said Cooper Hewitt director Maria Nicanor in a speech. ‘All of them are truth seekers, beauty makers, connectors.’

The National Design Awards grew out of the White House Millennium Council, an inter-governmental coalition established by the Clinton administration to rise to the challenges of the 21st-century. Now in its 26th edition, the prize is recognised as the most prestigious design accolade in the nation.

High-profile attendees included Martha Stewart, Thom Browne, Maya Lin, Jenna Lyons and Tory Burch, who all received special recognition at the awards banquet. Also in attendance was Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of AirBNB and America’s first Chief Design Officer, a title granted by President Trump in 2025.

In their 60-second acceptance speeches, award winners expressed gratitude while acknowledging the challenges facing the design community and the country – from artificial intelligence to climate change.

Some took subtle aim at recent White House actions. Kurgan, who took home the award for digital design and is a professor at Columbia University, seemingly referenced that institution’s $200 million settlement with the federal government last summer: ‘[Academia] is undergoing serious assault and transformations,’ she said. Architect Teddy Cruz, a co-winner of the award for climate action, devoted his firm’s award to ‘every single beautiful member of the immigrant communities we work with every day.’

Still, Gebbia, who leads America’s National Design Studio, touted the importance of America’s design sector and the need for innovation. The honourees, he told Wallpaper* following an address, represent ‘the best of our nation.’

And indeed, the remainder of the evening, set in the grand hall of the National Museum of the American Indian, was a celebratory one. The night culminated with a special dessert performance from artist Laila Gohar, complete with a marching band and cakes in the shape of objects from the Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection.

‘It makes me hopeful that we have good [honourees] who are good designers,’ Nicanor told Wallpaper* as waiters sliced into cakes shaped like Michael Graves teapots. ‘Some of them are very young, some of them have long trajectories, so there's a continuity there. I don't see that breaking.’

The 2026 National Design Award Winners

• Robert Earl Paige (Design Visionary)
• Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman (Climate Action)
• Mattaforma (Emerging Designer)
• Frida Escobedo Studio (Architecture)
• Thought Matter (Communication Design)
• Laura Kurgan (Digital Design)
• Josh Tafoya (Fashion Design)
• Charlap Hyman & Herrero (Interior Design)
• Ten Eyck Landscape Architects (Landscape Architecture)
• Berea College Student Craft (Product Design)

Afternoon Light isn’t your typical design trade fair. The New York Design Week happening – on view through 19 May – is tightly curated and yet bypasses the usual pomp, circumstance and aggressive fluorescent lighting.

There’s no hierarchy between the 63 exhibitors or walls between their displays, plus it’s a lot less awkward to engage with an audience that's equal parts visiting trade and general public. ‘We believe strongly that the most interesting rooms hold both canonical brands and emerging studios democratically,’ says Deirdre Maloney, co-founder of Afternoon Light. ‘The tension between them is what makes each look better’.

Location is key. This year’s edition – the fair’s second – is taking place on the light-filled 5th and 6th floors of multifaceted Financial District office tower WSA. Sweeping views of the surrounding skyline, East River and Brooklyn Bridge make for a dramatic but also contextualising backdrop. The travertine stone and hardwood floors help too. Here, there’s room to meander, relax in one of the lounges, peruse a pop-up book store, play a game of ping-pong and grab a bite to eat.

‘We heard a lot of people wax poetic about how the fair last May just felt really good, like a relief or respite, and it's always our goal to create a space where people want to hang and where doing business is a pleasure,’ says Minya Quirk, fellow co-founder of Afternoon Light.

How the event facilitates that business also reflects this no-nonsense approach. Its cash-and-carry model is made explicit with a suggested shopping list published by design criticism Substack For Scale. Items – everything from chairs and lamps to tiles, speakers and hardware – range in price from $17 to $14,000. Here are a few highlights.

Rare Reissues

Rarify, a company that has taken American furniture design by storm, has mounted two activations at the fair. With likeminded platform IKONstudio – uncovering long overlooked design classics – it has mounted an immersive installation within WSA’s red velvet-laden entrance. On view is the ‘SOM79’ chair, originally designed by Charles Pfister for Halston's Olympic Tower studio, a space that had a similar look. With 3D-printing lighting brand Gantri, Rarify is launching emerging Brooklyn designer Christian Borger’s hyper-engineered ‘MLS-01’ kit-of-parts lamp.

Illuminating new lighting

There are several innovative lighting fixtures on offer. New Orleans-based Sara Schoenberger is unveiling her architectural ornament-inspired ‘Coronette’ collection. Stickbulb – often using oak wood trees felled across New York City – is introducing ‘Pleat’, pendants incorporating folded Japanese kozo paper. Detroit-based designers Ryan Kahen’s totemic ‘Ode to Pluto’ both references celestial bodies and the speakers that define the Midwest city’s still thriving electronic music scene.

Amped-up listening experiences

In a similar spirit of design facilitating listening experiences, sound-oriented furniture producer Symbol Audio is launching a bespoke speaker using Swiss modular storage unit brand USM’s Haller System. Staged as a listening room, the ‘Wall of Sound’ installation at Afternoon Light recalls the Grateful Dead’s 1972 Woodstock performance and Jamaican hi-fi culture.

Eye-catching hardware

Good sound systems require powerful hook-ups – why shouldn’t they also look good? Cue boutique Australian hardware manufacturer ZETR. Making its US debut at the fair with an interactive display imagined by Flack Studio and featuring lighting by Volker Haug, the brand is presenting both its fully concealed and metal finished flush-mount power point products. Taking a similar approach to re-assessing the oft-overlooked hardware typology is recently established brand Dimwit. Revealed at Afternoon Light, the ‘Anagrams’ collection comprises dimmers, switches and outlets cast in colourful hues of intricately flourished acrylic.

Tantalising tiles

There’s a good amount of innovative material solutions on offer. Take Dutch tile producer Palet, also making its US debut. Its favourable-price-point designs are graphical and visually playful, allowing designers and consumers to clad their bathrooms and kitchens in bold tromp l’oeil patterns.

Fresh furniture debuts

Los Angeles producer RAD Furniture has launched its collaboration with ever-experimental talent Sam Klemick. The ‘Post Collection’ translates Kelmick’s normally wood sculptural chair designs into the company’s proprietary powder-coated metal. Brooklyn’s Eric Weil is showcasing his new decidedly geometric, stepped-block ‘Carlo’ collection, while fellow Brooklyn studio Ollin presents squat cow-hide upholstered stools and footrests meant for lounging low to the ground.

In summer 2025, the Moomins hopped across the pond from their native Finland and were welcomed in New York for their first-ever US exhibition. Now, the whimsical, illustrated characters, first created by artist Tove Jansson in 1945, are back for a takeover of the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG).

This year’s vibrant summer show (23 May to 13 September 2026) is a nostalgia trip that transports you to Jansson’s joyful Moominvalley and celebrates the childlike sense of curiosity that pervades her books. Full of warmth, humour and philosophical reflections on life, the Moomin titles are still loved today (and the characters seen everywhere from Magniberg clothing to Samsung’s Art TVs). The artist took inspiration from the wonders of the great outdoors to create her fictional universe, and the 250-acre botanical garden, in the Bronx, is a fitting setting in which to explore it.

The colourful exhibition, titled ‘Flower Power’, aims to connect the natural world of the Moomin stories with the exhibition’s focus on using flowers as symbols of peace and love. At the heart of the exhibition is the reimagining of the NYBG’s Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. Here, guests can enjoy story-inspired activities such as a clue-based quest and hands-on nature crafts, while limited-edition Moomin merchandise is available at the garden’s shop.

Although the Moomins have been popular in Europe for decades, Jansson’s work has been less known in the US. This year, however, the NYBG show is not their only State-side gig; ‘The Moomins’ Sea Adventures and Tove and the Sea’ opened in March at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle and runs until 6 September 2026.

‘“Summer of Moomin” marks a special moment for us,’ say James and Thomas Zambra, descendants of Jansson and creative director and director of business development, respectively, at Moomin Characters, which manages her legacy today. ‘Tove Jansson’s stories have always celebrated curiosity and a deep respect for nature. Partnering with the New York Botanical Garden feels like a natural way to introduce new audiences to the world she created – one where adventure begins outdoors and where people are reminded of the joy and calm that nature can bring.’

‘Summer of Moomin’ is at the New York Botanical Garden from 23 May until 13 September, 2026

More on Moomins at moomin.com

Wallpaper* editors know a thing or two about design. We also know how to have a good time. Friday night, Wallpaper* teamed up with communications and storytelling platform Hello Human, and the Brooklyn-based cultural space, Public Records, to throw what was arguably the party of New York Design Week.

As soon as the sun went down, guests from across New York’s creative scene flocked to Brooklyn’s industrial Gowanus neighbourhood to celebrate in style. At Public Records – housed in an early 20th-century warehouse that originally served as the headquarters of the ASPCA – guests queued to mingle over mezcal cocktails (courtesy Oaxaca-based distillery Rosaluna); mill around the venue’s tree-shaded courtyard; and, of course, dance the night away to one of the best sound systems in town.

The beating heart of the evening was Public Records’ Upstairs listening lounge, which included a site-specific installation of 13 independent makers co-curated by Wallpaper* and Hello Human. Los Angeles-based studio Ah Um showcased two ambient lighting features, while husband-and-wife duo ALMa Design Studio displayed their Huipil vase, which draws inspiration from a traditional woven garment worn by Indigenous communities in Mexico. A foldable, metallic mirror by Elena Mahno merged geometry and art, while Kalon Studios presented a series of seating and tables made from gleaming steel and stone.

Innovative lighting set the ambiance in the sultry space, including designs from Brooklyn-based Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, who displayed a dramatic timber floorlamp, and Liyang Zhang, whose minimal paper piece takes the shape of a folded garment. Other creatives to be discovered Upstairs included Lichen, NoN Studio, oforo, Platform Studio, Thomas Yang, Vy Voi and Studio Baldo.

See all the exhibitors here

The pieces were in symphony with the creative ambiance – and a backdrop of an immersive soundscape, courtesy DJs Francis Harris (a co-founder of Public Records) and Dor Levi, who spun records upstairs. Later in the evening, the Sound Room hosted a techno night with Berlin and London-based DJ Irene Amnes; Los Angeles-based artist ONYVAA and Minimal Wave Records founder Veronika Vasicka spinning into the wee hours of the morning.

Inside Wallpaper's party with Hello Human and Public Records

A fresh crop of hardware companies has emerged in recent years with a simple question: can humble cabinet pulls and knobs be a new medium for bold aesthetic expression? The challenge: not to let form overpower function; wild, oversized shapes must not impede actual daily use. Ellis Works, recently founded by Alex Bellos, the former president of retail brand West Elm and CEO of lighting and lifestyle goods firm Schoolhouse, is attempting to bridge the gap between style and substance by turning art into product.

‘A lot of talents are creating beautiful sculptural forms, but when it comes down to it, these designs are being introduced into our kitchens and bathrooms,' Bellos says. ‘I want to push forward artistic exploration but also make sure that the results work.’

Ellis Works is based in a workshop in the Sunset Park neighbourhood of Brooklyn. From here, the company’s carefully curated selection of pulls, handles and knobs – mostly imagined by a tight roster of local artists – is produced. They’re made in different sizes and mounting styles and in ten materials, from contemporary finishes like brass and nickel, to patinas like verdigris and antique.

‘We’re trying to solve problems, help architects and interior designers have flexibility, all while maintaining our point of view,’ Bellos says. ‘Everyone loves edge pulls, but they’re hard to install, so what we did is develop a design that looks like this typology but doesn't have to be mortised-in.’ Designed in-house, the easy-to-mount ‘Throop’ collection, for example, is defined by a streamlined wave shape that allows it to function properly without having to be anchored on top of the mass of a cabinet door.

Though it might seem like Ellis Works is a career pivot for Bellos, he actually first forayed into the product category when taking over Rejuvenation Hardware 12 years ago. ‘What I was particularly drawn to was the brand’s history; going through its archive and pulling out a Sears catalogue from 1904 and seeing what could be brought back to life,’ he adds.

He spent 14 years at West Elm, where, on becoming president in 2017, he brought revenue up $2 billion. He moved to Food52 in 2022 but departed as company CEO in 2023 (Food52, the parent company of sister brands Dansk and Schoolhouse, filed for bankruptcy in December 2025).

Bellos remembers thinking, ‘I have almost 20 years of experience in the home furnishings industry; how can I take established traditions but also my own acquired knowledge and apply it in new ways that make sense?’

The potential of hardware had that special pull. ‘Since my time at Rejuvenation, I’ve loved the category,’ he says. ‘For one, it’s the real jewellery of the home. It’s also one of the only things you interact with constantly. The feeling of a brass knob in your kitchen or bathroom changes your perception of these environments.’

Bellos established Ellis Works at the end of 2025. Its name and ethos are an homage to his great-grandfather, an Austro-Hungarian immigrant who, like millions of people, came through Ellis Island to start a new life, eventually starting a butcher shop in Ridgewood, Queens.

Like his ancestors, Bellos sees value in old-world techniques; for him, there’s a special kind of magic intrinsic to hardware, that high-design can be distilled into small packages. Take a recent collaboration with the Brooklyn-based silversmith Heath Wagoner. For the ‘Tessuto Cabinet Knob’, the designer created jewellery-like pulls that resemble flowing fabrics straight from a Caravvagio painting. ‘[Heath] can do an experimental wax casting in his studio and we can bring that to market pretty much exactly as he’s done it,’ Bellos said.

Ellis Works is a lean operation for now – it’s just Bellos, a product technician and a skilled artisan. ‘We have the flexibility to test out new ideas, play and collaborate with great people,’ Bellos says. ‘There’s a spirit of partnership both on the back and front end of the process; with the talents we commission and the architects and interior designers that spec our products. I love the personal aspect; being able to talk to everyone involved.’

Wagoner isn’t the only collaborator. Artist and designer Jonathan Mergele has created ‘Ferrea’, a collection of hardware that resembles knots, the result of a trip to Portugal and observing how artisans created a cathedral grate. Kalen Kaminski, founder of multidisciplinary practice GONE, has contributed Portal, a series of mesmerising hand-blown glass knobs.

During New York Design Week, Ellis Works has teamed up with Canal Street lifestyle brand William White to stage an immersive installation that demonstrates how the hardware can be used to support different daily tasks. Also launching as part of the showcase is Scottish studio potter Joshua Williams’ all-ceramic ‘Cairnsmore’ cabinet knob.

This creative potential – that high design can be delivered in small packages – thrills Bellos. And he hints that there may even be more product categories in store for Ellis Works: ‘When starting the company, I was very specific about the idea of door and cabinet hardware being functional goods,’ he says. Now, he continues, the question has become, ‘what are other functional goods in the home?

‘What are other opportunities to experiment and play with almost any type of object that’s screwed into the wall?’

New York Design Week 2026 is back in full swing and the Wallpaper* team is here (including members from across the pond!) for the action. From 14-20 May, we’ll be criss-crossing the city to bring you live reportage from the hundreds of shows, debuts and parties popping up around the Big Apple. If you’re in town, be sure to bookmark this page (and our handy-dandy map of happenings) for NYCxDesign, the city's official design celebration, as well as news straight from the city's hottest showroom and galleries; the convention floor of ICFF; plus the sophomore edition of Afternoon Light. Also not to miss, our takeover of everyone’s favourite magazine store, Casa, with our newly-released travel guides, including a special edition devoted to New York. Get it while it’s hot.

Meet the editors

Here’s what to see at NYCxDesign 2026, according to our editors

New York Design Week is a multi-borough affair, making it tricky to decide what might be worth a look. To make your life easier, we’ve identified some of the top things to do and see during New York Design Week. Here’s what’s on our radar, from fairs to showroom open-houses to museum exhibitions.

Kvadrat launches new accessories with Raf Simons

Out of the hundreds of textile collaborations out there, none carry quite the same IYKYK notoriety of Raf Simons’ ongoing partnership with Danish company Kvadrat. I still cherish my pebbly bouclé tote bag from 2014 (the first year of the collection) and we recently gave Simons’ adorable kids collection a Wallpaper* design award.

Last night at Kvadrat’s Park Avenue flagship, the brand revealed the latest drop of Raf Simons merch, which includes new textiles (including a buttery-soft waffle-weave velvet, inspired by the checkerboard patterns of the Viennese Secession movement) as well as fashion accessories including a baseball cap, toiletry bag and – my personal favourite – a pair of slippers. Get ‘em while they’re still in stock here. – Anna Fixsen

475 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

A Snøhetta Soirée

There’s a truism about architects: they work hard and they play hard. That's why when I heard Snøhetta was having a housewarming to celebrate their new offices in Brooklyn last night, I couldn’t resist. As far as architecture offices go, this is one of the most impressive I’ve seen, with a prime Dumbo location (I had to swim through tourists snapping selfies in front of the Manhattan Bridge to get in), a roof terrace and an airy open plan illuminated by a skylight and (for the night anyway) a disco ball. Architects and design professionals mingled with journos over wine and snacks. Other notable cameos: Bjarke Ingels (a Dumbo neighbour) and a drag performer. – Anna Fixsen

‘The Espasso Apartment': Office of Tangible Space and VERSO come together

Office of Tangible Space and VERSO present an exploration of the enduring nature of creative influence. The exhibition pairs work by contemporary designers with historic design pieces to reflect on the continuity of ideas across time and propose that innovation is never created in isolation, but shaped by precedent, process, and lived experience.

‘The Espasso Apartment’ - found upstairs of the VERSO x Office of Tangible Space exhibition - showcases Brazilian and South American design amongst other international designers:
Featuring works by: Etel Carmona, Arthur Casas, Color Atelier, ETEL, Kat Howard, Kawabi
Fernando Mendes, Claudia Moreira Salles, Carlos Motta, Oscar Niemeyer, Office of Tangible Space, Sergio Rodrigues, Ronald Sasson, Giuseppe Scapinelli, Peter St. Lawrence, Joaquim Tenreiro, Waves and Frequencies, Jorge Zalszupin. – Olly Mason

144 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205

Maiden Home's collection is an ode to the American Arts and Crafts movement

Presented during New York Design Week, this installation marks the debut of the Eva Collection, Maiden Home's second collectible series. Designed in their Tribeca studio, the collection-comprising a sideboard and an anmoire reflects an evolving expression of American design. Maiden Home nods to the American Arts and Crafts movement with touches of ceramic and timber frames, a friendly ode to both craft traditions and techniques. This is brought to life by artisans in upstate New York, who shape the wood. and a husband-and-wite ceramic duo in Colorado, who mold and glaze each tile before it is hand set into the facades.

Writer Olly Mason

34 Little West 12th Street, New York, NY 10014

Come dine with Molteni&C

A distinctly uptown dress code was adorned for this downtown dinner, hosted by Italian furniture giant Molteni&C at Casa Cipriani—the lacquered wood-lined members club across the upper floors of the historic Battery Maritime Building. Harbor views backdropped the celebration of Cristián Mohaded’s leather-strapped Corsetto armchair, fresh from its Milan debut. After martinis and champagne, Mohaded sat down (on a Corsetto, naturally) with Molteni Group’s CMO Giulia Molteni and PIN-UP magazine founder Felix Burrichter for a quick chat, before an Italian feast was served alongside a live jazz performance. Photos were not permitted, though a pro was on-hand to snap George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, Eny Lee Parker, Adam Charlap Hyman and other notable guests. – Dan Howarth

10 South St, New York, NY 10004

Hardware gets hip with For-Scale and Bankston

Wednesday, For-Scale founder David Michon partnered with high-end architectural hardware brand Bankston took over Colbo Next Door, a newly opened, cozy wine and vinyl bar adjacent to hip boutique Colbo. Guests sipping orange wine packed into the narrow bar and spilled into Orchard and Allen streets at either end. Those able to slide into the exhibition, 'A Manifesto on Touch,' could glimpse Bankston’s collaborations with buzzy studios Sans-Arc, Edition Office, Civilian and YSG Studio. Open by appointment through 17 May. – Dan Howarth

51 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

Take in a peepshow, Apparatus style

At Apparatus's midtown headquarters, a sumptuous 'peepshow' offers viewers furtive glimpses of sublime Puiforcat tableware. Through the exhibition, in which viewers sit on Apparatus's tubular Episode chairs, visitors get the opportunity to contemplate each silver piece – the hours of craftsmanship revealed; the importance of time and dedication to each object celebrated. In addition to the peepshow, pieces of furniture and lighting from Apparatus dot the space.– Olly Mason

At 124 West 30th Street, Floor 4, New York, NY 10001, United States

Soothe your senses with Suchi Reddy's new wallpaper

For prolific New York-based architect and designer Suchi Reddy, light is much more than a visual effect – It has the power to influence one’s mood and wellbeing. A lot of her work lately has dealt with the emerging field of neuroaesthetics—a science exploring the biological and psychological effects of aesthetic experience. Commemorated with an intimate dinner at Manhattan restaurant Bridges, her new Luminous wallcovering collection for Calico harnesses colour, pattern and various image-making techniques to help shape perception – how a space will look, but also feel. Catch the installation from 15-19 May. at Calico's Tribeca showroom.–Adrian Madlener

57 Lispenard St, New York, NY 10013

Watering Cans, and Other Rolled Sheet Metal Accessories, at Maharam

Students from the Leon Ransmeier-led industrial design program at Cranbrook Academy of Art spent a week in Guadalajara last October working with artist/designer Fabien Cappello to develop a series of watering cans produced by local craftspeople specialised in the hojalata technique: turning locally sourced tin into ornamental objects. Rolling and embossing metal almost like paper, they created experimental yet products. Presented at American heritage textile brand Maharam’s Manhattan showroom, as part of the Objetos de Hojalata para el Hogar exhibit, the dozen or so concept designs are as varied in shape as they are functionally configured. Writer: Adrian Madlener.

Maharam, 251 Park Ave S #15, New York, NY 10010

A Look Back at Tom Sachs' DIY Designs at Salon 94 Gallery

Collectible design gallery Salon94 has allocated its entire Upper East Side townhouse to a full retrospective of New York creative maverick Tom Sachs, known for cleverly combining salvaged items found on the street into prankish yet coherent furnishings. Works on view include Crate Chair No. 6, created with wooden barriers used by New York energy company CoEd. The Furniture exhibit demonstrates how through his ‘bricolage’ D.I.Y. approach, the polymath deftly blends high and low materials (ceramics and natural stone with styrofoam and duct tape) in bold ‘democratic’ concept designs. In doing so, he positions himself in a line of seminal ‘problem solvers': Frank Gehry, the Eameses, Noguchi, Brancusi, and so on. As of 15 May, the exhibition is also featuring wares by Satan Ceramics, a collective Sachs has been a part of for over a decade. Writer: Adrian Madlener.

Salon 94, 3 East 89th Street, New York, NY 10128

Gantri Wireless Launch Party at TIWA Select Gallery

Alex Tieghi-Walker’s Tribeca loft gallery-residence TIWA Select has a packed schedule this week, kicking off with the launch of California brand Gantri’s first collection of wireless lighting. Designed in collaboration with San Francisco-based design studio Ammunition, the series of geometric lamps fall into three styles – Drift, Pier, and Eave – and draw their colours such as Spruce, Magnolia, and Lichen from the West Coast landscape. These compact cordless lights were scattered through the space, tucked into nooks on the bookshelves, placed on side tables and desks, and positioned on the busy bar as if they belonged there all along. Writer: Dan Howarth

TIWA Select, 86 Walker Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10013

A night (and some lights) in Venice

The design crowd at large packed into In Common With’s Tribeca gallery, Quarters, Thursday for a celebration of the lighting brand’s debut foray into glassware. The Lido Series, produced in partnership with Venetian glass atelier Laguna~B and made in Murano, comprises four lighting designs and two drinking glasses embellished with colorful floral patterns. These were echoed in the impressive arrangements throughout the multi-room gallery, where the martinis (a common recurrence this week) flowed well beyond the scheduled closing time—a sign of a good party! – Dan Howarth

383 Broadway, Floor 2, New York NY 10013

Devin Wilde and Astraeus Clarke team up for the season's 'it' fixture

There have been several fortuitous designer collaborations launched at this year’s New York Design Week as independent studios and talents come together to complement each other’s expertise and intuition. One of the highlights of the week is a new lighting collection from ceramic artist Devin Wilde and design studio Astraeus Clarke. Friday night, the creative collaborators revealed Staccato, a new series of modular light fixtures that capture the allure of a sun-washed Italian villa, with a distinctly contemporary edge. Each fixture features Astraeus Clarke’s signature star-shaped shade holders topped with Wilde’s conical ceramic shades. It’s the result of a shared aesthetic and a real friendship. ‘We both came to the table with ideas, sketches and instincts, but it quickly became clear that there was a shared sensibility, we weren’t forcing anything,’ says Jacob Starley of Astraeus Clarke. ‘The forms just made sense together.’ Equally logical? The Italian-style amaro that flowed during the launch party last night. – Adrian Madlener

Getting crafty with Sarah Sherman Samuel at colony

To launch her first monograph, The Intersection of Art and Design, celebrated Michigan-based designer Sarah Sherman Samuel has teamed up with Colony gallery to reveal her new exhibition, Weight & Wonder. On view are Samuel's signature furnishings like the Fort Credenza and Ledge Dining Table. She's also launching a new group of stone tables, called Pop Pop, specially for the show. Guests at the opening were treated to chocolates from Detroit and flavoured tequilas. And as an added fun activity bonus, they were also invited to paint Samuel-designed tiles and take them home. - Adrian Madlener

196 West Broadway New York, NY 10013

Inside our epic bash with Hello Human and Public Records

Wallpaper* editors know a thing or two about design. We also know how to have a good time. Friday night, Wallpaper* teamed up with communications and storytelling platform Hello Human, and the Brooklyn-based cultural space, Public Records, to throw what was arguably the party of New York Design Week.

As soon as the sun went down, guests from across New York’s creative scene flocked to Brooklyn’s industrial Gowanus neighbourhood to celebrate in style. At Public Records guests queued to mingle over mezcal cocktails; mill around the venue’s tree-shaded courtyard, and, of course, dance the night away to one of the best sound systems in town.

Read the recap (and see who turned up!) here.

Furniture finds its foodie side at USM

At USM Modular Furniture’s SoHo flagship, the Swiss brand’s signature storage system provided multiple stages for culinary experiments by Pinch Food Design. A host of inventive drinks and snacks were presented on, around and inside the minimalist steel structures, inviting guests to help themselves to the feast. Wine-filled glass amphorae were suspended from towering frames, while desserts such as red velvet monkey-shaped cookies, chocolate eclairs and passionfruit-glazed churros were hidden inside drawers. In the name of journalism, I sampled them all (it was a lot…), and the tastiest were the wafer-thin chips with a ranch coating, yellow carrot and cheese tartlets presented on cross-shaped shelves, and mole-coated polenta churros hooked onto rails. Luckily this week’s step count has been high enough to burn this all off! – Dan Howarth

28-30 Greene St, New York, NY 10013

Take in a sky-high design showing

Eighty floors above Manhattan, Galerie Gabriel is showcasing a collection of 20th-century and contemporary masterworks set against sweeping skyline views. The duplex penthouse in the Sutton Tower has been framed as a collectors’ home by interior designer Julie Hillman, who has assembled a variety of furniture pieces by the likes of Jean Royère, Gio Ponti, Charlotte Perriand, Osvaldo Borsani and many more for the project titled The Cultivated Eye. The items are dispersed through the expansive residence alongside contemporary and custom designs, as well as artwork provided by Creative Art Partners and curated by Paige Israel. Highlights include a bespoke double-sided cream sofa with wooden lion feet that’s positioned in the centre of the vast, triple-aspect living room, and a series of Aboriginal artworks and artefacts sourced from D’Lan Galleries. And don’t miss the powder room for a slightly dizzying experience. – Dan Howarth

Open to the public by appointment until 30 November 2026. 80th Floor, Sutton Tower, 430 E 58th St, New York, NY 10022.

Go on a field trip with BluDot

Tired of the New York-iness of New York Design Week? Head over to Blu Dot's Madison Avenue flagship to take a trip up north, more specifically to Minneapolis, Minnesota. For its 'Field Trip' presentation, Blu Dot tapped Twin Cities area photographer Galen Fletcher (a protege of fellow Minnesotan Alec Soth) to photograph the brand's Field lounge chair in recognisable places throughout the region, from the frozen Minnehaha Falls to the famed First Avenue music venue. As a Minnesotan, this one hits particularly close to home. – Anna Fixsen

Blu Dot, 79 Madison Avenue, New York, NY

Channel your inner child with Soft Geometry's new lighting

This Design Week, husband-and-wife duo Soft Geometry introduced a series of lighting that explored childhood memories growing up in India during the 1990s. The group, presented in an exhibition called 'Flowers in Our Hair,' brought together two expressive sconces – one flower-shaped, the other evoking long plaited hair styles – to explore the aesthetic links between how we decorate our spaces and our bodies. – Olly Mason

Kartik Research, 61 Orchard St.New York, NY 10002

A final call for ICFF

It's the final day of ICFF, one of America's largest furniture shows. It's also the final time you'll catch the fair before it moves to a new slot on the design calendar, November 2027. Wallpaper* editors scoured the fair floor during the preview day on Sunday, but there is still time to catch all of this year's offerings.

Out of the thousands of furnishings, light fixtures and accessories on view, lighting stood out. We particularly loved the work of Brooklyn-based designer Anna Dawson, who introduced a series of glass lights that draw on her childhood memories of ribbon dancing with her grandmother. Dawson uses kiln-formed glass, in glowing reds, oranges and golds, to create fluid shapes that evoke movement and warmth.

W*400 designer Virginia Sin also had a strong booth, the highlight of which was her new Field lighting collection. The clever system, which arrives flat-packed, features a ceramic backplate and six different shade options made from materials including moiré, parchment and paper-thin cork. Each shade folds, origami-like, over the bulb, creating diffuse, atmospheric lighting for virtually any environment. Talk about a bright idea! -Anna Fixsen & Olly Mason

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 655 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001

Warp & Weft marks its 25th anniversary with the debut of its Crossroads collection at ICFF

Tasteful nudes at the Ace Hotel Brooklyn

If you've got it, flaunt it. At the Ace Hotel Brooklyn this Design Week, that specifically meant life-drawing skills. Monday evening, the perennially-hip hospitality outpost teamed up with the design Substack For Scale (see their collab with Bankston below) for an evening of good ol' fashioned figure drawing. During two evening sessions during the event, Furniture With Life, burgeoning artists, charcoal pencils and drawing pads in hand, gathered around a styled tableau, complete with furnishings and lighting from Rarify, Beni Rugs and Santa & Cole – plus an in-the-buff model, who was none other than writer and design historian Michael Diaz-Griffith. Talk about naked ambition! – Anna Fixsen

252 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn, NY 11217

DESIGN HOTELS x LUMENS

‘The New York Edit’ - a Design Hotels and Lumens presentation, curated by Simple Flair, at 11 Howard
Featuring design from:
In Common With
Rosie Li
Roll & Hill with Christopher Merchant
SIN
Forma Rosa Studio
PELLE
Caroline Kable
Episode
Umberto Bellardi Ricci
Rafael Prieto
Sunfish

Writer Olly Mason

At 11 Howard St, New York, NY 10013, United States

A star-studded evening with the Cooper Hewitt

The National Design Awards mark one of the most prestigious honours in American design. Tuesday evening, in a glittering ceremony in Lower Manhattan, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum honoured the ten 2026 recipients, plus a handful of other luminaries. High-profile attendees included Martha Stewart, Thom Browne, Maya Lin, Jenna Lyons and Tory Burch, who all received special recognition at the awards banquet. The night culminated with a special dessert performance from artist Laila Gohar, complete with a marching band and cakes in the shape of objects from the Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. Read our full report on the evening here. – Anna Fixsen

Bright ideas from Lucifer Lighting

Here’s a secret: one of the best art galleries in New York isn’t in a Chelsea Gallery, but in a Tribeca lighting showroom. Lucifer Lighting, the family-run, San Antonio, Texas-based company that’s been a go-to source for architects and designers for 45 years, has recently partnered with Pace gallery to install a joyful survey of works from the late American pop artist Robert Indiana. Yes, you’ll spy a mini Love sculpture, but also, in honour of America’s 250th birthday, a variety of patriotic prints – all beautifully lit, of course. To celebrate, Lucifer hosted a panel discussion moderated by journalist Ian Volner that included architect Marlon Blackwell, Lucifer founder Gilbert Mathews, Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative director Emeline Salama-Caro and Grammy Award-winner Randall Poster on a discussion surrounding the meaning of ‘made in America.’ This lighting company is clearly serving up bright ideas in more ways than one. – Anna Fixsen

11 Jay Street, New York, NY 10013

Raised in Seattle by French parents, Sophie Lou Jacobsen learned to appreciate life in motion from an early age. Having lived in Paris, London and Milan, she chose to settle in New York, a place shaped by people, ideas and ambitions in constant flux. That sensibility carries through into her reworking of everyday objects, predominantly in glassware (her new ‘Disco Aperitivo’ collection was revealed during Milan Design Week), where colour, form and a gentle playfulness introduce an organic sense of fluidity.

‘New York’s energy is all about movement,’ the designer says. ‘The constant physical movement of people and objects, the conceptual movements between jobs, scenes, goals – moving closer or farther away from your dreams.’ It’s a rhythm she describes as frenetic, most palpable when crossing into Manhattan, where the skyline pulls you in, and the pace takes hold. ‘No one lives in New York to sit still. As soon as you land here, you are swept up by it – letting things arrive by chance until you learn how to navigate it.’

The city is, in her words, ‘gritty, grimy and glamorous’: a location defined as much by friction as by allure. Its street life is shaped by character rather than conformity. ‘It’s not somewhere where people try to blend in,’ she says. ‘People are fully themselves. There’s a generosity here, but it comes through honesty – and not everyone is ready for that at first.’

New York may be inherently individualistic, where most arrive in pursuit of something personal rather than permanence. Yet out of that comes a distinct sense of community: ‘Everyone understands that you need others to survive, so there’s a willingness to connect, to be helpful, to give as much as you take.’

Sophie Lou Jacobsen’s New York

With her itinerant past, Jacobsen declares New York the place that has allowed her to define both herself and her practice, which ranges from collectable design to tableware and interiors: ‘No city makes me feel more at home. I owe so much of what I’ve built to being here. It’s a relationship that feels permanent, even if not fixed. I don’t know if I’ll live here forever, but I could never leave it completely.’

For the launch of the Wallpaper* New York City Travel Guide, we asked Jacobsen to share the hot spots and haunts that make it so hard for her to consider living anywhere else.

Much of her inspiration comes from ‘old New York’ – dining rooms and bars that have resisted reinvention, where atmosphere is accumulated rather than designed. A delight in restaurants like Gene’s, in Greenwich Village, infused with a sense of evenings well spent over the decades, sits alongside a fascination with the city’s architecture: pre-war details, shifting streetscapes, and the compositions that emerge in passing. Her ideal day might begin at The Frick Collection, recently reopened within its early 20th-century mansion, where she drifts between the research library and galleries.

On Madison Avenue, the Khaite flagship offers a different kind of immersion, its interior architecture echoing the elegant yet discreet language of the clothes. Elsewhere, the Breuer Building, now home to Sotheby’s, is a constant point of return. ‘It’s one of my favourite buildings in the city,’ Jacobsen notes, adding that she’s drawn to its successive reinventions and the determination to keep it in use.

For dinner, she likes bistro Le Veau d’Or, recently revived by the Frenchette team. ‘I am so grateful when new owners do everything in their power to retain the original patina, energy and atmosphere,’ she says. She’s also fond of Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle hotel. ‘My favourite treat is to head there midweek for an early afternoon pick-me-up after a trip to the Met.’

To belong to New York, Jacobsen suggests, is to build something personal within scale, and to keep going, even when the rhythm feels overwhelming. ‘You realise,’ she says, ‘that you’d probably miss it the moment you leave.’

According to Sophie Lou Jacobsen...

What is the best month to visit New York? October. It always seems as though everyone in New York smiles during this month.

What should one wear to blend in? Just wear any colour other than black!

Who is someone in the city you admire? Parker Posey.

What is the best way to make friends? Sit at the bar, any bar.

I can’t leave New York without… having a martini at the Palm Bar at JFK Terminal 4.

For more recommendations, buy our New York Travel Guide, £15.

Film: Ian Wishart for Wallpaper*

For the first time, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair includes a curated section focused on Afro-Brazilian art and artists. Titled, ‘1-54 Presents: Brazil Beyond Brazil’, the presentation debuts at this year’s edition of 1-54 New York (13-17 May 2026).

According to the organisers, the section draws on archival research, reinterprets modernist legacies, and interrogates the construction of national and art historical narratives, pushing back against the often narrow framing of Afro-Brazilian art. The section will feature artworks by Black Brazilian artists such as Ana Claudia Almeida, Rebeca Carapiá, Helô Sanvoy, Jaime Lauriano, Luana Vitra, Diego Mouro, No Martins, Rommulo Vieira Conceição, Mônica Ventura and Lidia Lisbôa, presented by leading Brazilian galleries including Almeida & Dale, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Nara Roesler and Aura.

The work on view showcases the diversity of Afro-Brazilian art and highlights Black Brazilian history and art history, the complexity of Black Brazilian experiences, and the cultural links between Africa and Latin America. A former Portuguese colony, Brazil was a major destination of the transatlantic slave trade. It has the largest population of Black people outside Africa, with more than half of its population identifying as Black or of African heritage.

Brazilian curator, art historian and professor Igor Simões, who organised ‘1-54 Presents: Brazil Beyond Brazil’, tells Wallpaper* the idea came in part from noticing the absence of Black Brazilian artists in African diasporic art history. Another reason, he adds, is the fetishisation, exoticism and expectations of Afro-Brazilian art, especially as viewed through a global lens.

'I think it’s exciting for [Afro-Brazilian artists and art] to be centre stage rather than on the sidelines,' says Touria El Glaoui, the founding director of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.

In late 2025, Glaoui, alongside about two dozen people, including ten US-based emerging Black collectors, travelled to São Paulo on a trip organised by 1-54 and ISE-DA (a contemporary art advisory which specializes in art in Africa and its diaspora with a focus on cultivating the next generation of Black collectors, founded by Nigerian art advisor Adefolakunmi Adenugba), in partnership with Latitude, a platform supporting Brazilian galleries abroad and Cutuca Projetos Culturais.

There, the team met with Simões, who helped curate meetings with Black Brazilian artists, art professionals, collectors, and cultural leaders, as well as visits to the studios of artists including Moisés Silva Patrício, galleries, institutions, residencies, collections, and art spaces, all focused on Afro-Brazilian art. There was also a guided tour of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, curated by the Cameroonian Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, which featured several artists from Africa and its diaspora, as well as some artists now featured in ‘1-54 Presents: Brazil Beyond Brazil’.

The decision to have the section at the 2026 edition of 1-54 New York was inspired by the visit to São Paulo and conversations with curator Simões, says Glaoui, aligning with 1-54 New York’s expanding focus on spotlighting art from the African diaspora, with dedicated Caribbean and African American sections in recent years. Those visits, tours and conversations brought to the fore the incredible and diverse work of Afro-Brazilian artists and the challenges they face, including insufficient visibility and support, compared to their counterparts.

The new section will be helpful in 'shifting the gaze to [Afro-Brazilian] creativity in Brazil that has often been ignored and not given the right visibility', says Glaoui, adding that it will showcase the exuberance of Afro-Brazilian artists and art, and also be useful for people who might not be knowledgeable about Black Brazilian history.

In addition to featuring in the curated Brazil section, São Paulo-based Aura is one of more than 20 galleries showing work at the wider 1-54 New York, which opens on 13 May at the Starrett-Lehigh Building. Aura makes its debut at the fair alongside galleries from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the Americas, including Nassau-based The Current: Baha Mar Gallery & Art Center, New York-based Tanya Weddemire Gallery and Lagos-based Adegbola Gallery, which presents ‘To Carry My Cross’, a solo show of new work by London-based, Nigerian artist Aaron Kudi, who makes abstract paintings with acrylic, enamel paint, ink and liquid metal, glazed tarpaulin and cotton duck canvas.

Returning galleries include Geneva and Abidjan-based Filafriques, Paris- and Venice-based 193 Gallery, Johannesburg-based Kumalo Turpin, Lagos-based O'DA Art, Washington DC-based Gallery Article 15, Baltimore-based Galerie Myrtis and New York-based Kates-Ferri Projects, which presents a group show, ‘Mirrored Histories & Woven Futures’, with work by Damien Davis, Samuel Nnorom and Dana Robinson, who is inspired by 1970s Ebony magazines and explores themes including Black female identity through media such as printmaking, painting, collage and textiles.

The special projects for this edition include Black Forest, an installation by artist and assistant director of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ekene Ijeoma. It seeks to address environmental disparities in Black communities through strategies such as tree planting. Black Forest Library features 40 books, 40 plants, 40 seeds and artworks. Black Forest School, billed as a travelling series of programmes and spaces focused on Black and non-white perspectives in nature, debuts at the fair.

Another special project is Entanglements by TM Arthouse, launched by Tout-Monde Art Foundation, which brings together Caribbean and Amazonian artists such as Nyugen Smith, Chantalea Commin, Tania L Balan-Gaubert, Ramses Serrano, Johan Amiemba, and Edouard Duval-Carrié, with works across embroidery, wood, metal, sculpture and photography examining entanglement as a historical and ongoing force shaping the region.

A third special project to look out for is Collective Practices of Refusal across the Black Atlantic, by TZ Production Company and Vilanismo, a collective of Black Brazilian male artists, which addresses the conditions under which Black life is made visible by exploring themes such as autonomy and self-representation.

1-54 New York 2026 runs between 13 and 17 May at the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Chelsea

1-54.com/new-york

TEFAF New York opens this week, and Galerie Patrick Seguin returns to the fair for the fifth time, bringing more unseen work by French modernist architecture master Jean Prouvé. This year, French gallerist and collector Seguin will bring 12 projects to his stand – two of which have never been on display for the public before.

Explore TEFAF New York’s Galerie Patrick Seguin display on Jean Prouvé

Indeed, Villa Lopez (1953) and the Valençaude school (1954) are two of Prouvé's lesser-known works, which have not been shared widely or seen much since their initial conception in the 20th century. They join ten more works at the stand: the SCAL pavilion (1940), the BCC house (1941), the 6x6, 6x9 emergency housing units (1944) and 8x8 reconstruction unit (1945), the Carnac vacation house (1946), the Better Days house (1956), and school and office buildings such as the Croismare glassmaking school (1948) and the Maxéville design office (1948).

The projects are showcased in a way that highlights 'the consistency of the constructive system developed by Jean Prouvé', the gallery explains in its statement. The architecture's capacity to adapt, both in terms of scale and function, was key in the French modernist's thinking.

Prouvé believed that 'there is no difference between the construction of a piece of furniture and a house', states the gallery. At the heart of the stand, among the amazing structures designed by the architect, is a rarely seen table. The piece, a 3.3m-long element, was originally designed in 1952 for the Antony Cité Universitaire student residences on the outskirts of Paris.

The table's large scale is a key focal point for the stand. Titled ‘Centrale’ table, it is made out of folded steel and was designed in the 1950s – a representation of Prouvé's material explorations and a true collector's item.

TEFAF New York runs 14-19 May 2026 at the Park Avenue Armory, New York

tefaf.com

patrickseguin.com

Sometimes you just need a 'New York happy meal.' No, not the kind with a burger and toy from the Golden Arches, we're referring to the adult version: a perfectly chilled, proper martini – gin or vodka, your choice – paired with crispy, salty fries. In the Big Apple, you’re never far from a bar with stiff drinks and stunning design or one of the many classic New York restaurants with a bar scene that makes you want to hang out for hours. But not every well-dressed boozer gets the martini-and-fries combo just right. At Wallpaper*, we’ve done the heavy lifting – drinking and dining – for you by curating the ultimate list of spots for ’tinis and fries, with a side of impeccable vibes and visually appealing interiors.

Whether it’s a midweek pick-me-up or a Friday night celebration, these stylish and atmospheric establishments run the gamut from enduring downtown haunts like Balthazar, Raoul’s and The Odeon to new-ish darlings such as Chez Fifi, Raf’s and The Eighty Six.

Chez Fifi

Josh and David Foulquier (of Sushi Noz fame) created Chez Fifi, designed by Stockholm-based Joyn Studio, as an intimate French bistro for the chic, Uptown crowd. Occupying the second floor of the bi-level townhouse, above the dining room, Salon de Fifi pours a salty, savoury take on a classic martini, made with Truman vodka, Laurent Cazottes Green Tomato liqueur and Dolin Blanc vermouth (of course, if you prefer gin, there are plenty to choose from, including Procera, distilled in Kenya using locally sourced juniper berries). The perfect pairing? Frites maison with house aioli and an Osetra caviar add-on, for a decadent upgrade.

Chez Fifi is located at 140 E 74th St, New York, NY 10021

Balthazar

Keith McNally’s bustling brasserie in the heart of SoHo, Balthazar, an old-school anchor of Spring Street since 1997, is about as classic as it gets. With just the right amount of downtown energy, especially when the drinks start flowing, it’s an iconic spot for post-shopping buzz and bites. On any given night, loyal regulars, celebrities and clued-in out-of-towners rub elbows at the perennially packed counter, under the warm glow of globe lighting. There are a lot of ways to do Balthazar right – and one of them is a New York happy meal. Grab a bar stool or a red leather banquette, order a chilled vodka or gin martini with a trace of vermouth and a side of fries – cut fresh daily and double-fried in peanut oil – with all the sauces.

Balthazar is located at 80 Spring St, New York, NY 10012

The Eighty Six

A historic Jazz Age pub and Prohibition-era speakeasy reborn as a jewel box dining destination, with rich, vintage-inspired interiors from Rockwell Group, The Eighty Six is prime for a decadent night out. The haute West Village hangout takes martinis seriously, with renditions like the Smoked Dirty Martini – a mix of vodka, applewood-smoked olive brine, a trio of stuffed olives (bleu cheese, anchovy and cultured butter and crème fraîche topped with Osetra caviar) and Marcona almonds, finished tableside, poured over a sculpted ice column. A sign of a true scratch kitchen with a flair for the opulent, the French fries are made with house-cut potatoes, served alongside HV57 ketchup and house-made malt aioli. And the snug, low-lit space encourages lingering – at least until the next reservation needs the bar seats.

The Eighty Six is located at 86 Bedford St, New York, NY 10014

Raf’s

Raf’s, a French-meets-Italian bakery and café on Elizabeth Street, is where the downtown set goes for a New York happy meal. A modern NoHo eatery with an old-world soul, this new-ish kid on the block feels current without being try-hard, channeling a European-style dining experience that’s in lockstep with the pace and panache of the Big Apple, whether you’re in the mood for a leisurely lunch that melts into the afternoon or dinner. Grab a seat at the curved marble bar or tuck into a snug table in the mirror-lined dining room for a ‘tini (or two) and golden crisp shoestring fries (with ketchup and mayonnaise for dipping, of course).

Raf’s is located at 290 Elizabeth St, New York, NY 10012

Le Rock

Le Rock, the French brasserie in the heart of Rockefeller Center, designed by Workstead, dazzles the working lunch and after-work crowd, plus destination diners and drinkers, with its elegant, Art Deco-influenced flair: veined marble, brass details, warm wood and leather banquettes. Run by the James Beard Award-winning chefs behind Frenchette and Le Veau d’Or, it has a serious culinary pedigree – credentials that extend to the bar. Straight from the freezer and presented in a tall V martini glass the Maison Martinis – including the Super Sec with overproof gin, extra dry and white vermouth and Au Poivre with vodka, manzanilla olive, vin jaune and green peppercorn – and hot, crispy frites are worth contending with Midtown traffic.

Le Rock is located at 45 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10111

Raoul’s

Raoul’s, a SoHo institution dating back to 1975, does no-fuss, retro glamour (think: dark wood, pressed tin ceilings and provocative art) better than anyone. It’s where bartenders go after their shifts end, alongside neighbourhood regulars and low-key celebs without a stitch of makeup. And all stop by for the same reason: an old-school, properly chilled martini and classic French bistro fries – crispy, salty and made for steak but more than capable of standing on their own. If you’ve managed to nab one of the coveted bar seats, don’t even think about giving it up. Get another round of drinks (be sure to ask if there are any of the famous Burger Au Poivre left) and let the night unfold.

Raoul’s is located at 180 Prince St, New York, NY 10012

Warren Street Bar & Restaurant

The Kit Kemp-designed Warren Street Hotel in Tribeca is a cheerful departure from the sleek skyscrapers around the city. Joyful and full of colour, its exuberant, maximalist interiors are alive in the salon-like Warren Street Bar & Restaurant, where bold hues, playful patterns, and punchy art create a whimsical backdrop for a New York happy meal. The martini happy hour, 'created to make an ordinary afternoon feel a little indulgent,' means $15 ‘tinis and $10 parmesan-dusted truffle fries with house-made Bloody Mary ketchup daily from 3PM to 6PM. But, of course, you can post up at the pewter-topped bar, crowned by a large-scale sculpture by Gareth Devonald Smith, for a frosty olive martini – pre-batched and served in a frozen coupe – and fries any time.

Warren Street Bar & Restaurant is located at 86 Warren St, New York, NY 10007

The Lobby Bar

The Lobby Bar at Hotel Chelsea is a Gilded Age refuge from gritty 23rd Street, a place for ‘tinis, a touch of opulence and, of course, people watching in a series of rooms adorned with original marble mosaic floors, inlaid ceilings and plush velvet seating. Go for the vibes, libations – the booze program is led by Sunday Hospitality’s Beverage Director Brian Evans – and the beautiful setting. Signature drinks include the 1884 Martini, with gin, cedro lemon, vetiver and Spanish olive oil, as well as the Dukes Martini, an homage to the London staple poured tableside with freezer-cold vodka or gin and a vermouth rinse and finished with Meyer lemon peel. What could be a better companion than the salty, crispy fries?

The Lobby Bar is located at 226 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011

Chateau Royale

Château Royal offers a cinematic interpretation of vintage French luxury – deep reds and gold, layered with checkered floors, velvet upholstery and ornamental mouldings. The swank scene is complemented by standout sips. The martini, the first recipe owner Cody Pruitt created for the restaurant, follows an 8:1 ratio of spirit to vermouth, using a house blend of three dry and blanc vermouths and a white apéritif, lifted with a touch of Italian lemon liqueur. The pre-batched ‘tinis are poured tableside by a server in a dapper white tux. In equally luxe fashion, the wonderfully crispy, fluffy pomme frites show up piled high on a silver platter with a side of Pommery mayonnaise.

Chateau Royale is located at 205 Thompson St, New York, NY 10012

The Odeon

Old-school is the name of the game at The Odeon, a beloved Tribeca benchmark for the past four decades. But this classic New York restaurant doesn’t trade exclusively in nostalgia. It’s as happening as when Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat were regulars. Still, it’s a temple to tradition – as evidenced by the dark wood bar and hanging globe lamps. The martini follows a classic 00.5 oz vermouth to 2.5 oz vodka or gin ratio, and gets a good stir or shake before being served in a well-chilled martini glass – the same style since 1989 – and is garnished with either three olives on a pick or a lemon twist. The fries are hand-cut in-house, double-fried and very crispy.

The Odeon is located at 145 W Broadway, New York, NY 10013

Deux Chats

Deux Chats, from the team behind Le Dive and The Nines, feels as if a Parisian Art Nouveau-inspired cocktail lounge landed in New York’s Jazz Age and then flashed forward to the present. Its curved green bars, antique mirrors, vaulted ceilings and hand-painted tiles created a sense of Belle Époque nostalgia and modern romance. Both cozy and social, it’s established itself as a good-time Brooklyn go-to for martini-and-fries obsessives, with a walk-in-heavy scene. Patrons can choose from a selection of expertly crafted martinis (classic, dirty, vesper, kinky, etc.) and a side of golden fries with garlic aioli. Going with a group? Opt for the martini fountain.

Deux Chats is located at 27 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11249

Sloane’s

Tucked away on the second floor of SoHo’s chicest hotel, The Manner, Sloane’s is a jewel box draped in rich red, emerald and gold. The intimate atmosphere, with just enough scene-iness and dimly lit corners for canoodling, makes it a date destination – especially for pairs who prefer the classic combination of a martini and fries to a heavy sit-down meal. With the launch of Martini Mondays, the lounge is leaning further into its status as a New York happy meal spot. On the menu? An indulgent pairing of an ice-cold martini, seasoned fries and a caviar bump, or a trio of signature mini martinis like the Cold Plunge (gin, Cocchi Americano, lemon, mint oil and Creole bitters).

Sloane’s is located at 58 Thompson St, Second Floor, New York, NY 10012

Corner Bar

Corner Bar at Nine Orchard, the fashionable Dimes Square hotel favored by editors, stylists, designers and off-duty models, is a favorite for its relaxed feel and gastronomic chops. The setting leans toward a casual tavern with tin ceilings, white subway tile walls, plaid café curtains and dark wood. Yet the chef-driven approach, which extends to the beverage program, means you’re guaranteed a gloriously glacial martini with either Reyka vodka or Ford’s Gin and crispy fries with rosemary and Dijon aioli, whether for pre-dinner drinks or a nightcap with a nibble. If you have a hankering for something a bit heartier, the menu includes classics like steak tartare and the 9O burger.

Corner Bar is located at 60 Canal St, New York, NY 10002

There was a point, not too long ago, when designer Esha Ahmed was running her textile business out of the trunk of her Volvo and her apartment in Queens, New York. But as her brand, Makrosha, grew from a side hustle into an in-demand source for top interior designers, it was clear she needed to level up.

So when the opportunity to lease a space in a Gilded Age building on the southwest corner of Union Square in 2022, Ahmed leapt at the opportunity. Makrosha only continued to grow, evolving from a core group of fabrics to a full spectrum of textiles, accessories and rugs.

Makrosha comes from the Bangla word for spider, a reflection of Ahmed’s Bangladeshi heritage and her propensity to weave history and narratives into her vivid fabrics. It’s a sensibility that’s been years in the making, starting with when she was a little girl visiting sari shops with her mom, and continuing through stints at the Costume Institute, Peter Marino’s studio, and graduate school at FIT. Pick up any Makrosha fabric and you’ll find inspiration as varied as 17th-century French silk, Art Nouveau, flowers scattered across a Yorkshire moor and her mother’s closet.

Compared to her joyous fabrics – with names like Whirly Girly and Goosey Gold – her small showroom left something to be desired, in both style and square footage. ‘Any time a client came, we’d go into panic mode because we had fabric swatches everywhere,’ Ahmed jokes. Luckily, a studio next door became available, so Ahmed opted to expand into that space and tap her friend, interior designer Tara McCauley, to create something that felt uniquely hers. ‘I wanted it to feel discovered,’ Ahmed says.

As with her fabrics, Ahmed and McCauley looked to the past in designing the space, specifically an elegant 19th-century atelier. Guests step into a cosy vestibule, cloaked in Makrosha’s Meena fabric, an opulent stripe woven in India. The space also features a vintage Murano chandelier and an antique wood cabinet, displaying Makrosha pillows and throws. ‘The aesthetic is rooted in history,’ Ahmed explains.

Visitors are then ushered into a light-filled room where they can browse Makrosha’s fabric collection, displayed on gold metal rods against walls painted in a soft lilac limewash. ‘This colour shows up in the collection a lot – it’s not neutral but it’s not going to fight with what we’re showing,’ McCauley explains.

‘I am always drawn to Aesthetic Movement colours, where it’s muddy with a neon pop,’ Ahmed adds.

From there, visitors enter the atelier’s heart, a cosy double-height room, painted in a darker shade of lilac, that hosts client meetings and creative sessions. With its antique furniture, including a towering 1890s cabinet, and lively mix of patterns and colours emanating from soft furnishings, fabric samples and a mauve floral rug underfoot, the space feels like entering a secret wunderkammer that floats above Union Square.

There are more spaces to discover, like an upper-level nook atop a set of carpeted stairs, where customers can catch up on email or relax; or a sample room downstairs, where Ahmed’s three-person staff works. Unlike the soft-coloured walls upstairs, this space is clad in a softly-gleaming metallic wallpaper, ‘Andy Warhol’s Factory was a few doors up the street, but silver walls felt a bit too on the nose,’ McCauley explains. ‘This wallcovering with the woven overlay tells that story in a more relevant way.’

An antique wall hanging from the 1920s depicting the ruins of ancient Carthage adds a touch of more distant history.

The new showroom marks an important moment in Ahmed’s business; the opening coincides with the launch of a new made-to-order rug collection, called Shinki and inspired by the East-meets-West aesthetics of early 20th-century Japan. The designer’s also developing a collection of solids (‘because you can’t have flowers on everything’ she jokes) and continuing to deepen her relationships with weavers in Italy, Scotland, Nepal and upstate New York.

But for Ahmed, it marks something more personal: ‘I had never seen my fabrics all hung up together because I never had space to show the full collection,’ she says. ‘It made me a little emotional!’

Makrosha is located at 1 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003. Visits are available by appointment.

If you thought the month of May was just for the Met Gala, your mom, and bad Justin Timberlake memes, you’ve got another thing coming: May marks the biggest city-wide celebration of design in North America via the annual festival NYCxDesign. During this week-long jubilee, officially slated for 14-20 May, designers, makers and manufacturers descend upon the Big Apple to scope out major launches at ICFF, America’s leading commercial furniture trade fair; absorb fresh ideas at showcases like Afternoon Light; and, of course, party the night away at soirées thrown by showrooms and studios across the city.

Because New York Design Week is a multi-borough affair and also bumps up against New York Art Week, it can be tricky to determine what might be worth a look. To make your life easier, we’ve identified some of the top things to do and see during New York Design Week. Here’s what’s on our radar this year.

FAIRS

Frieze New York
WHAT: The design world isn’t the only one descending on the Big Apple this time of year; one of North America’s largest art fairs, Frieze New York, will also be taking place concurrently. If you (or your client) need an excuse to build an art collection, be sure to pop by the Shed to scope out offerings from leading galleries like Gagosian, David Zwirner, Houser & Wirth and many more.
WHEN: 13-17 May 2026
WHERE: 545 West 30th Street, New York, NY 10001

TEFAF New York
WHAT: The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) is an annual spring show inside the vacuous Park Avenue Armory dedicated to fine art, antiques and collectible design from top galleries around the globe. Expect 20th-century treasures from masters like Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, and Pierre Paulin, alongside hot contemporary names like Harry Nuriev, Faye Toogood and Misha Kahn.
WHEN: 15-19 May 2026
WHERE: 643 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065

Afternoon Light
WHAT: If independent, emerging design is more your speed, pop by WSA in Lower Manhattan for Afternoon Light. Now in its sophomore year, the design showcase has become a go-to for design heavy-hitters (think USM and Carl Hansen & Søn) and in-the-know names like Sam Klemick (who is teaming up with fellow Angeleno RAD Furniture on a new collab) Matthew McCormick, Mary Ratcliffe Studio and more.
WHEN: 16-19 May 2026
WHERE: WSA, 161 Water Street, New York, NY 10038

ICFF
WHAT: Each year, more than 400 vendors and 13,000 design professionals head to Manhattan’s west side for North America’s biggest contemporary furniture, ICFF. Come for launches from American and international exhibitors alike; stay for a series of talks and lectures by leading figures in the design industry. Not to miss: Wanted, a highly curated subsection of the fair – 20,000 sq ft, to be exact, devoted to avant-garde and emerging voices.
WHEN: 17-19 May 2026
WHERE: Javits Center, 429 11th Ave, New York, NY 10001

GALLERIES

DUDD LIGHT at the Future Perfect
WHAT: Looking for some levity amid all the serious design names? Be sure to swing by the Future Perfect’s townhouse for JONALDDUDD’s annual showcase. This year, the ‘platform for dissenting voices’ is showcasing 120 night lights designed by Chris Wolston, Lindsey Adelman and Bethan Laura Wood and more – designers who clearly aren’t afraid to have some fun after dark.
WHEN: 12 May to 26 June 2026
WHERE: 8 St Lukes Pl, New York, NY 10014

Sarah Sherman Samuel at Colony
WHAT: Sarah Sherman Samuel is one of the biggest names in North American design, yet she’s only just launching her first-ever book. Come celebrate her new tome and her latest body of work, Weight and Wonder, at Colony.
WHEN: From 14 May 2026
WHERE: 196 West Broadway New York, NY 10013

Ana Kraš at Emma Scully Gallery
WHAT: Svila means ‘silk’ in designer Ana Kraš’s native Serbian and is the subject of her latest design investigations, now on view at Emma Scully. Visitors will be impressed with how the designer uses silk alongside materials like glass and timber to create luminous ‘panel’ lamps and ethereal tables.
WHEN: Through 13 June 2026
WHERE: 16 E 79th St #21, New York, NY 10075

Fancy & Flourish at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery
WHAT: Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX weren’t the only fancy ones: early 19th-century American furniture was too. This delightful new show at Jacqueline Sullivan delves into the so-called ‘fancy’ style that swept North American design some 250 years ago, from elaborately stenciled chairs to agateware pottery. Come for the antiques, stay for the whimsical contemporary interpretations by Katie Stout, Gordon Moore, Isabel Rower and Sharktooth.
WHEN: Through 20 June 2026
WHERE: 52 Walker Street 4th Floor, New York, NY 10013

Roberto Lugo in Madison Square Park
WHAT: On the final day of Design Week Philadelphia-based potter and artist Roberto Lugo will bring his larger-than-life artworks to Madison Square Park for all to enjoy. ‘Alfarero del Barrio’, Spanish for ‘village potter’, is an all-out celebration of Puerto Rican culture and heritage via a gigantic, 20ft-tall urn and a 15ft-tall fire hydrant, decorated with images of Puerto Rican luminaries and graffiti.
WHEN: 20 May – 6 December 2026
WHERE: Madison Square Park

SHOWROOMS

Soft-Geometry at Kartik Research
WHAT: Los Angeles-based design studio Soft-Geometry takes a trip down memory lane via two new collections presented at the clothing store Kartik Research. On display will be a new version of their signature Long-Haired Sconces (inspired by flowing plaits) as well as a Flower sconces that recall the designers’ childhoods growing up in 1990s-era India
WHEN: 13-19 May 2026
WHERE: 61 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

Christopher Merchant and Kawabi at Assembly Line Annex
WHAT: Sometimes the best collaborations are the most obvious. Take the recent pairing of Brooklyn-based maker Christopher Merchant and Kawabi, helmed by life partners Aaron and Irisa Na-Chan Kawabi. The studios were neighbours, but had never thought to collaborate before. The result is Amica, a new lighting collection that unfolded like a letter between pen pals. Check it out at Assembly Line’s Tribeca outpost.
WHEN: 14 May to 16 July 2026
WHERE: 66 W Broadway, Unit 402, New York, NY 10007

Lawson Fenning Bosque Collection
WHAT: For a quarter century, Lawson Fenning has been the definition of California-cool furniture. Now, with a new Manhattan showroom designed by Josh Greene, they’re ready to celebrate their 25th year in business via a new collection. Pop by the space to check out the new line, called Bosque, presented alongside new lighting from Ceramicah and and ceramics by Victoria Morris.
WHEN: Open Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm
WHERE: 417 Lafayette St, Floor 5, New York, NY 10003

For his new exhibition at Friedman Benda (until 24 July 2026), Dutch designer Joris Laarman is offering two radical bodies of work that he cooked up in his laboratory in Amsterdam – a former munitions factory on the leafy ex-military peninsula of Zaandam, where he moved with his family three years ago.

His boulder-like 'Symbio' benches are 3D-printed in recycled and carbon-capturing concrete, with recessed patterns embedded with a bio-active substrate that supports the growth of mosses and lichens. These, in turn, will provide habitats for insects, attracting bird life to a garden. Meanwhile, his 'Ply Loop' series of furniture swaps the toxic glues typically used in engineered wood with a new 100 per cent biodegradable resin, while pushing the form and aesthetic possibilities of plywood to the limits.

Joris Laarman: designing for humans and nature

'Symbio' gives a nod to German eco-philosopher Glenn Albrecht’s notion of the Symbiocene – an imagined age after the Anthropocene, in which humans and nature coexist in a state of reciprocity.

‘It’s the only way forward,’ says Laarman. But aesthetics play a vital role in making the case to the consumer, he adds. ‘If you want to compete with all the fancy colours and material technologies from the industrial era, you have to show the expressive possibilities of bio alternatives and create desire so that, when faced with a choice, people choose the regenerative option.’

This, he does in spades. Laarman’s benches are a poetic ode to a symbiotic future, their seemingly primordial forms bearing a reaction/diffusion pattern first studied by Alan Turing that occurs in nature from the interaction of two chemicals: one that is active and the other inhibiting. These patterns – which appear on fish, zebras, leopards and many plants – encapsulate the meeting of nature and technology in Laarman’s work.

His 'Ply Loop' series is much more complex in form, featuring improbable, computer-generated curves made possible in real life thanks to his use of tiny, laser-cut strips of plywood and a bio-based resin from Plantics, an Arnhem-based company where the designer is a partner. It is a thermoset resin, meaning it doesn’t dry out while Laarman and his team of craftspeople assemble each strip by hand – an insane jigsaw puzzle that takes many hours to complete. 'The resin is like the syrup in [staple Dutch treat] stroopwafel,’ he says of the material, made with waste from the sugar beet industry. It can be separated from the timber and reused at the end of the furniture’s lifespan.

Designing with science

Both series involved many years of research and collaboration with scientists and material innovation companies, with Laarman seeing them as a proof of concept for larger pieces in future. 'The gallery is the only platform that enables us to really invest in research and experimentation,’ he says. 'Showing with [Friedman Benda] is the earliest stepping stone to getting these ideas out into the world.

One wall of the gallery will come to life with an animated projection of how Symbio could be applied to building façades, something Laarman is already exploring. He is particularly excited by the carbon-capturing concrete developments by companies such as Paebbl and Carstorcon.

‘For a long time, we’ve been talking about how we should build less, to protect the environment, but these could offer a 180-degree turn around,’ Laarman explains. ‘We could actually lock away more carbon than we emit as we build.’ If adopted at scale, such innovations would enable our cities to become carbon sinks. In the meantime, Laarman’s collections at Friedman Benda, which marry craft and computation to highly expressive effect, offer a tantalising glimpse of a regenerative future – one that we should all be striving to bring to fruition.

‘Joris Laarman: Symbio’, is at Friedman Benda in New York until 24 July 2026

If you need a reminder why you moved to New York, Club Rhubarb promises the affirmation you seek. The nomadic art project from artist-turned-curator Tony Cox echoes the transgressive and make-do attitude of a downtown before soaring rents and invasive chain stores.

After two prior locations – Cox’s own Chinatown walk-up and a Dimes Square townhouse – Club Rhubarb now calls an assuming two-floor house right across from the New Museum home. The blink-and-you-miss it entrance on the edge of Prince Street opens up to a wonderland that is currently inside the gnarly imagination of artist Brock Enright who has been quietly producing genre-pushing and materially driven mixed-media artworks for 30 years. The 50-year-old’s attention-demanding and unapologetically diaristic artworks in the exhibition ‘I am so pretty’ possess memory-laden found objects and punchy short video work – and they do justice to Cox’s experimental vision.

The takeover starts immediately at the house’s mudroom, up a staircase and into the living room, with splashy-coloured paintings built with wood, acrylic and foam as well as an array of found objects, often with hints at an early MTV-era childhood in American suburbs. Bits of toys, Salvation Army pins, Polaroids and hoses punctured with tiny pins contain a neat obsessiveness, with a precision in their abruptness. Recalling German Conceptualist Rosemarie Trockel in their balancing of an internalised geometry and textured abstraction, the paintings expand from the moodily lit staircase into the bright and spacious living room, which overlooks the New Museum’s own soaring staircase.

Cox, who met Enright around three decades ago, equates his friend’s art to weather. He tells Wallpaper* that ‘there have been so many weather conditions and changes that there is enough work to put in different spaces’. And the curator, who started out as a skater in the 1990s before transitioning to an art practice, fills the space to the brim with Enright’s generous output, mainly created between 2009 and the present. Cox even sees a parallel between his own art practice and Enright’s, which perhaps is most evident on the second floor’s showstopper installation of electronic guitars. In the darkened room, meant to evoke the artist’s own basement in his upstate New York home, a red light plays across the silhouettes of guitars and a shrine with a witch’s hat. A booming audio loop of Enright’s own tunes emanates from the guitars that he physically altered to transmit the unexpected sounds.

One of the inviting doors at the ensuing narrow hallway opens up to the show’s most intimate and grotesque offering: a darkened bathroom where visitors, perched on a bench in the shower, can watch videos streaming on a flat screen mounted above the bathtub. Light Drawing You (2014-25) – an intensely scratched mirror painting lit to a dramatic effect with LED lights – stands above the sink where the cabinet for toiletries would otherwise be hung. Cox says it was Enright’s idea to exhibit his short films from the 2000s inside the bathroom, which has led to this capsule installation that the curator has called BBC Brocks Bijou Cinema in an homage to the eponymous now bygone East Village movie theatre and cruising spot.

The darkened bathroom’s midnight soirée aura suits the videos’ gore content, which chronicles Enright’s defunct business of abducting volunteering clients to experience the thrill of being kidnapped. The venture, which had the artist appear in Rolling Stone and TV shows such as The View and Good Morning America, today feels like an odd alchemy of Saw movie franchise and reality shows in which the extreme is tested with monetary gain as well as loss of self-awareness.

The show’s finale brings back the daylight at the top floor’s main room above the hectic foot traffic of the Bowery which saw countless downtown fixtures stomp its sidewalks before the new Millenium brought waves of change. Here, a generous layout of intricately composed sculptures, which Cox overall calls the Wailing Witches Receiver Arena, evokes the feeling of walking into a secret ritual. Mostly suspended from the ceiling, these gentle sculptures beg for close inspection to reveal the obsessive core of Enright’s drive for embodying any feeling, even when this means an awkwardly fleeting sense of nostalgia. Both alien and disarmingly familiar, the compositions of finds – used scrunchies, bottle corks, straws, umbrellas and toys – resemble magic wands and dreamcatchers. They both animate humour and sternness. As witnesses to the artist’s last three decades of practice, they encapsulate a material force to remember, but they also release a generosity to belong to anybody with a suggestion of possibility and refusal of reason.

Expect a true downtown full circle moment when visiting Club Rhubarb, especially after a visit to the New Museum, which started out 50 years ago displaying similarly experimental work. Cox admits the thrill he finds in organising shows in lived spaces, especially with artworks that hold alluring oddities like Enright’s. ‘I spend so much time in these spaces before I install the shows,’ Cox says and adds, ‘It all started with understanding the uniqueness of seeing art with real things around them.’

‘I Am So Pretty’ is available to visit through an online booking.

With all the brouhaha surrounding this year’s Met Gala, you’d be forgiven if you forgot that the glittering soirée helps preserve and maintain one of the most important fashion collections in the world, the Costume Institute. And like the parade of celebrities (Bad Bunny, Beyoncé and – yes – lead gala sponsors Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos) who swanned down a cobblestone carpet, the Costume Institute itself enjoyed its own coming-out party: the inauguration of its sparkling new Condé M. Nast galleries.

‘Costume Art’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute

The galleries, located in what was the former footprint of the museum’s lobby gift shop, offer 12,000 sq ft of dedicated exhibition space that will allow the Costume Institute to mount more ambitious shows for longer periods of time; it also assertively puts fashion front-and-centre in the Met’s curatorial scope. The occasion, said Costume Institute director Andrew Bolton, ‘marks more than the opening of a new space; it marks a shift in how we understand fashion and, by extension, how we understand art itself’.

Appropriately, the 2026 spring exhibition ‘Costume Art’ aims to establish an irrefutable link between the Met’s 17 departments and fashion by displaying clothing from the Costume Institute’s holdings alongside some 200 objects from the greater museum collection. As such, ‘Costume Art’ provides a survey of sorts, demonstrating how the dressed body – be it clothed in garments or meaning – is a throughline across 5,000 years of art history. ‘The dressed body becomes a prism through which we view painting, sculpture and photography,’ Bolton said.

Visitors access the new galleries, which were designed by Brooklyn-based practice Peterson Rich Office, directly from the lobby. A double-height antechamber is dedicated to ‘Costume Art’s’ most basic conceit: the naked body. In one vitrine, 16th-century engravings of the fall of Adam and Eve are displayed alongside an NSFW bodystocking by Walter Van Beirendonck as well as a pair of flesh-coloured undergarments by Andreāamo and Vivienne Westwood, strategically embellished with metallic fig leaves. In another, a 1960s-era breast-baring monokini is juxtaposed with a similarly busty Iranian figurine dating back to 1500 BCE.

From bareness, ‘Costume Art’ delves into garments and the self – beginning with rigid, idealised notions of beauty in a section called the Classical Body and meandering through increasingly diverse ‘historically excluded’ categories like the Corpulent Body, the Pregnant Body and Disabled Body. In one niche, Georgina Godley’s ‘Pregnancy’ dress appears alongside an early 20th-century bronze of a pregnant woman by Edgar Degas. A central plinth in the Corpulent Body section showcases a Georges Braque painting of a full-figured woman carrying a basket of fruit, that’s flanked by an open-breasted yellow gown by Greek-born designer Dimitra Petsa and a body-hugging mesh gown by young Belgian label Ester Manas.

The enclosed cases– positioned just below eye level – encourage onlookers to get closer. Below a gauzy Gucci dress designed by Alessandro Michele embellished with a sparkling uterus applique in the Pregnant Body Section, they’ll be delighted to find an Egyptian carnelian figurine, no bigger than a thumbnail, of a woman with her legs spread-eagle.

A section on the Disabled Body is one of the show’s most compelling chapters. There’s a pair of carved timber prosthetic ‘boots’ designed by Alexander McQueen for Paralympian Aimee Mullins in 1999 alongside a stark black and white photo by John Gutmann depicting a classical sculpture’s truncated legs. There’s a naughty Mickey and Minnie Mouse T-shirt dress designed by Vivienne Westwood for punk fixture Helen Wellington-Lloyd, who was born with dwarfism; a 1975 pair of Levi’s blue jeans designed for wheelchair users; and a mesh ensemble by deaf and queer American designer Justin Dougan-LeBlanc. The section, say the curators, is to present the ‘disabled body as an active site of negotiation instead of a passive object of clinical scrutiny’.

From diverse bodies, the show goes on to delve into universal themes, like anatomy, ageing, and death, via gowns that seem to bleed (take a punctured Robert Wun ensemble); decay (like a glittering Thom Browne skeleton dress) and pulse (as with an anatomical-inspired slip dress designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen). It’s a deeply-researched show with a near-overwhelming amount of riches to discover; move through too quickly and you might just miss a Van Gogh or a brilliant idea from an emerging designer.

There’s something hopeful about being surrounded by this plurality of ideas and bodies, an optimism that feels like a comforting throwback in an age of Ozempic, Mar-a-Lago Face and anti-‘woke’ rhetoric. ‘It’s about everybody and it’s about every body,’ insisted Anna Wintour, Met Gala chair and global chief content officer for Condé Nast, the gallery’s principal benefactor.

Is that sentiment at odds with the tech billionaires that would raise $42 million for the Costume Institute and later party in its galleries? That might be an unintended consequence of the entire exercise. After all, as Bolton said, ‘to study fashion is to study ourselves’.

Costume Art is on view at The Met Fifth Avenue from 10 May, 2026, through 10 January, 2027.

In our new monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

Spring in London is without equal. This May, our editors plan to make the most of it, plotting days around alfresco interludes on the city's reopened terraces. Yet spring also stirs a desire to roam: in Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum has launched an exhibition about florals, while a quick hop to Paris promises a Pedro Almodóvar extravaganza. For those with Europe in their sights, the Venice Biennale opens to the public on 9 May. Long haul, the USA is marking its 250th anniversary this year, with no shortage of pomp and pageantry to accompany it.

At home and abroad, here is what to know about and see this month.

The exhibition: ‘In Bloom’, Ashmolean Museum

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

I am heading to Oxford this month to visit ‘In Bloom’ at the Ashmolean Museum. It's a fitting theme for May. This show explores the beauty of flowers, yes, but also their influence in many other spheres – from global trade to science and world exploration. It is a fascinating subject, and it's also designed by an exciting London-based architect, DaeWha Kang. Kang crafted the show cleverly and sustainably, reusing, in collaboration with the museum, some 85 percent of showcases from a previous show. He and his team reduced waste where possible and worked with low-impact materials throughout the displays and in the space's cafe, too. It only reinforces the exhibition's nature exploration. If you think you know about flowers, you should visit this show – and you might learn something new.

The event: Venice Biennale

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

This month I am looking forward to being in Venice for the opening of the Art Biennale. While it runs until November, the first week is always a buzzy, busy sprint across Europe's most magical city. Discovering the pavilions in the Giardini is a great way to while away a day, but I particularly enjoy the collateral events in beautiful palazzos. If you're planning a visit, make sure to keep an eye on our guide – and don't forget to stop for a spritz and some cichetti.

The restaurant: Honey & Co

Tianna Williams, staff writer

Usually a social recluse, I am breaking out of my introverted mould and diving into the deep end of social activities this month. One of the main things I am looking forward to is spending time with my closest friend, who has jetted over from Australia. To celebrate, we are looking forward to dining at the new Honey & Co outpost in Great Portland Street. I was scouting for a dining destination that felt cosy and fresh, with no waitlist, and a menu that looked delicious without the pretence (and without breaking the bank).

A fiend for Middle Eastern cuisine, I also can’t get enough of Iranian-Iraqi cafe Logma and Palestinian restaurant Akub (don’t sleep on their breakfast!). Honey & Co ticked the boxes. A fragrant bakery by day, turned restaurant at night, its interior is simple, pared back and intimate – taking on the form of a local establishment with Mediterranean design codes. I am looking forward to tucking into its house pickle plate, the seared pork belly and candied lemon, and the honey cheesecake. It is the perfect location to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine and catch up without a time zone.

The other restaurant: Bistro Sablé

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

I spent three years renting next to the beautiful north London enclave of Canonbury before making the inevitable trade-down to buy. So when I heard that former neighbourhood favourite Smokehouse had reinvented itself as Bistro Sablé, I had to book a visit. The pivot feels entirely sensible: barbecue trends come and go; French bistro cooking is forever.

The space, tucked inside a red-brick pub, is dressed with white tablecloths, mismatched chairs, candles, blackboards, blue-and-white tiles and artwork sourced from Parisian flea markets. It genuinely nails that elusive balance of effortlessness without trying too hard to look effortless. The prices are just as breezy: most mains are under £26, wine starts at £6 a glass, £5 negronis.

The menu is full of winners done well: escargots in a Staub pan, a Comté and cheddar soufflé, moules marinière, beef bourguignon, crème brûlée, a whole tarte Tatin for the table. There’s no need for novelty with a concept this assured.

The screening: ‘Pedro Almodóvar. Attachments’, Paris

Gabriel Annouka, art editor

As an Almodóvar-obsesionado, and someone who has watched every single moving image Pedro Almodóvar has ever made, including the questionable and misunderstood ones, I am more than willing to travel to Paris for one reason only: the Almodóvar retrospective at MK2 Bibliothèque, organised in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou. The prospect of seeing his 80s and 90s films, such as The Flower of My Secret or Kika, which remain his true masterpieces in my opinion, projected on the big screen already feels like a small cinematic pilgrimage.

The retrospective runs until 25 May 2026.

The installation: 'Alfarero del Barrio’ by Roberto Lugo, New York

Anna Fixsen, US editor

In case you missed it, America is celebrating a big birthday this year – its 250th. There’s a lot of pomp accompanying the semiquincentennial (say that five times fast!), including time capsules, parades and fireworks.

Philadelphia-based potter and artist Roberto Lugo is contributing something different to the festivities via a monumental installation in New York’s Madison Square Park. ‘Alfarero del Barrio’, Spanish for ‘village potter’, is an all-out celebration of Puerto Rican culture and heritage via a gigantic, 20-foot-tall urn and a 15-foot-tall fire hydrant, decorated with vibrant images of Puerto Rican luminaries and graffiti. Visitors will be invited to step inside the gigantic vessel, hang out for a game of dominoes, or take a selfie in front of the gigantic fire hydrant. It promises to be a playful mix of past, present and – most importantly – people. ‘During the semiquincentennial, celebrate us, all of us,’ Lugo said in a statement.

Opening soon on the Lower East Side is Stylus, the listening room to end all listening rooms. Designed by O'Neill Rose Architects, Stylus is a private members’ club for those who love audio in all its forms, with five listening spaces - of which these two are the most intimate and bespoke - along with a recording studio, salons, performance spaces dining area and test kitchens. The culinary programme is led by acclaimed Michelin Star-winning chef Anita Lo, adding up to a tasty menu of sonic-driven spaces.

According to architect Devin O’Neill, the project is about ‘exploring listening as a spectrum of experience. [I was interested in] how architecture can shape not just sound, but the way we physically and psychologically receive it.’ These two listening rooms have very different characters, ‘one deeply insular, the other open and connected,’ in O’Neill’s words.

The first is called Subliminal. ‘Conceived as an isolation chamber for sound,’ this is a subterranean space that seeks to emphasise the physiological response to sound. ‘We assembled a multidisciplinary team of acoustical engineers, scientists, lighting designers, speaker sculptors, interior designers, and furniture makers so that each voice could be embedded within a single, unified space,’ says O’Neill.

Subliminal is isolated and womb-like. Thick masonry walls are coated with insulation to keep the sound in, along with absorptive interior finishes that dampen reflections and any natural reverb. The sound system is a bespoke assemblage by OJAS, Devon Turnbull’s, including turntable, amplifier and a pair of mighty MTM speakers and the 400-pound OJAS Super Sub subwoofer. This required the installation of a special steel substructure.

All this can be experienced whilst reclining on a custom installation by Paulin, Paulin, Paulin, featuring Pierre Paulin’s legendary Dune Sofa, chosen following a meeting between O’Neill and Pierre’s son, Benjamin. ‘The Dune sofa perfectly supports the sound scape experience of Subliminal where shoes are left at the door,’ the architect explains. Above the Dune is a light installation by Sabine Marcelis, and other fittings and fixtures include vintage lighting selected by Selene Privitera and Paolo Matera.

Nothing has been overlooked. ‘Even the air is considered – continuously circulating through a concealed mechanical system integrated into the furniture – so that nothing interrupts the continuity of the experience,’ O’Neill explains.

The second listening space is located on the fourth floor. Called Suite 48, it is designed to feel part of the cityscape, with an adjoining roof terrace. ‘Unlike traditional listening rooms, which are typically sealed and introspective, Suite 48 is designed to maintain a connection to the city,’ says O’Neill. The multifunctional room was inspired the classic Victorian cabinet of curiosity, with bespoke joinery combining speaker and equipment mounting with niches for books and objects. The room can also double-up as a bedroom.

The flooring is the same brick used in the entrance courtyard, a material that carries through onto the terrace. The wood used for the cabinetry is from Dinesen’s new Layers range, the first time this engineered wood has been used in the US.

O’Neill points out a personal connection to Suite 48. ‘Growing up in Lower Manhattan, rooftops were where we gathered in the summer,’ he recalls, ‘[we were] surrounded by the sights and sounds of the city yet removed from its intensity. Suite 48 is an attempt to recreate that condition: a protected, warm environment that remains open to the energy of the city, designed for time spent with others.’

The technical specification includes speakers from Shivas Howard Brown’s Friendly Pressure studio, along with Friendly Pressure’s FP 401 turntable and a Soulnote A2 amplifier and Node Icon Reference quality music streamer. The whole space was developed in collaboration with Martin Meyer Nielsen of Danish cabinet-makers Ocular, a long-term collaborator with O'Neill Rose Architects.

Stylus bills itself as a ‘sanctuary dedicated to the ephemeral arts.’ Scheduled to open later this year, this ‘acoustic salon’ wants to reinvigorate the member’s club model by operating as a ‘hybrid for-profit/nonprofit’, the idea being that members support commissioning and programming in the new spaces.

These two listening rooms might be diametrically different in approach, but they’re unified by the Stylus ethos, a place where people come together to shape the conversation around sound, music, audio and performance.

More information on Stylus at Stylus.nyc, @Stylusnyc

ONeillRoseArchitects.com, @Oneill_Rose_Architects

OJAS.nyc, @DevonOJAS

Ocular.dk, @Ocular_wood

Uncanny Valley is a concept which describes the skin-prickling, creepy feeling you get when you see robots, dolls or computer-generated animations that look almost – but not quite – human. It is also the title of twin artists Nikolai and Simon Haas’ new show at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York.

‘Uncanny Valley’ invites visitors into the minds of the Los Angeles-based duo, best known as the Haas brothers. Since starting their practice 15 years ago, the twins have created a genre-blurring world that spans art, furniture, craft and technology through hybrid creatures and kooky forms. The show, organized with the Cranbrook Art Museum in Detroit, displays 85 of their works against a backdrop of surreal algorithmically-generated landscapes.

The items on display highlight the ways in which the Haas brothers merge technology with artwork that’s firmly rooted in human-centred craftsmanship. It also proposes a speculative art landscape, where human tradition and artificial intelligence intertwine. That through line is apparent in a series of vignettes, which the brothers describe as ‘problem-solving fantasies.’ These groupings display zoomorphic sculptures such as 'Beasts'; never-ending landscapes inspired by early computer graphics; and 'Emergent Sculptures', which explore self-generating forms through digital code.

The showcase also displays the studio’s collaborative work, including 'Freaks', a series of beaded critters designed in collaboration with the Cape Town, South Africa beading collective MonkeyBiz, which later expanded into a collaboration with women artisans in Lost Hills, California.

The exhibition is also accompanied by a monograph of the same name which features essays, interviews, and extensive archival material that provides deeper insight into the artists' imaginative universe.

All told, ‘Uncanny Valley’ is meant to beckon visitors ‘into worlds that are at once playful and profound,’ says MAD director Tim Rodgers, ‘where digital processes and handwork coexist, and where imagination becomes a powerful tool for rethinking how objects are made, experienced and valued.’

Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley is on view at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) until 16 August 2026

At the centre of Gourmega, a new restaurant in New York, there’s a single long table, topped with interconnected circles of Nubian alabaster. Guests sit around its unusually contoured edge on walnut chairs that, when placed back-to-back, resemble the arches of The Bronx’s High Bridge.

But Gourmega isn’t in the Bronx. In fact, it’s located in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The choice was an intentional one: Gourmega sits in what was known more than three centuries ago as Land of the Blacks – the first free African settlement in North America. Later on, it played host to many Black supper clubs.

Such references are at the heart of Gourmega, which was designed by award-winning Niamey, Niger; Zurich and New York-based Nigerien architect Mariam Issoufou for celebrated culinary collective Ghetto Gastro. The restaurant marks Ghetto Gastro’s first permanent, self-operated eatery and is a holistic celebration of both African and African diasporic culture. Every detail, colourway and material – as well as a closely curated seasonal chef’s tasting menu – nods to this rich source of inspiration.

‘One of the reasons I helped start Ghetto Gastro 15 years ago was because I was going to all of these restaurants and they were playing ‘90s hip-hop and I would look at the dining room and the kitchen and there was no representation of the people that created the style,’ says Jon Gray, Ghetto Gastro co-founder and Bronx native. Today, less than five per cent of Greenwich Village’s population identifies as Black. With Gourmega, Gray adds, ‘I wanted to do something to turn this on its head.’

Wallpaper* dines at Gourmega, New York

The mood: New York cool with sacred references

Gray set out to create a space as an immersive in-person experience, not just a social media ‘moment’. He wanted Gourmega to recapture the sense of discovery he felt when he first frequented downtown haunts like La Esquina and The Box two decades ago. He tapped Issoufou, an old friend, for the job.

‘I noticed that in many restaurants, couples and groups of friends sit together and spend much of their time looking at their phones,’ Issoufou says. ‘In my view, placemaking is ultimately about making people feel that they can appropriate the space, that it was made for them, with care.’

One of the main moves was the custom table, which breaks into smaller units for cafe seating during the day. During dinner hours, however, the pieces create a communal table, which allows for impromptu conversations among guests, not just those you came with.

The move is also a subtle rebuke of the ‘hegemony and patriarchy,’ as Gray puts it, of traditional European rectilinear tables and instead evokes the ancestral practice of gathering around a fire. ‘It’s more diplomatic and egalitarian,’ he adds.

Another key feature – a swinging semi-transient, semi-circular, yellow-toned door that separates the kitchen from the main dining space – evokes the sun, a divine force in many African cultures.

The kitchen is shared with Rethink Food, a long-established non-profit taking restaurant food waste throughout New York City and turning it into fine-dining meals delivered to neighbours in need. A similar spirit of resourcefulness informed many of Issoufou’s material choices: cork flooring, engineered wood wall panels limewashed in black. 'When the first African Americans arrived in this area, they too had to make do with whatever materials they could source to build shelter,’ she explains. ‘The contrast with alabaster is not a contradiction but an argument: humble and sacred materials in dialogue, the way communities themselves contain multitudes.’

Issoufou also incorporated bronze wall hangings by Nigerian designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello that evoke the Kingdom of Benin tradition of scarification, the scratching and etching of women’s faces to represent health and nourishment. ‘Because we’re close to King Street, we really wanted to think about the idea of honouring Queens, especially Black Queens throughout the diaspora and from the continent: Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba; Queen of Sheba and Nefertiti, but also revolutionaries like Nina Simone and Angela Davis. Artworks by Rashid Johnson and Hugh Hayden will soon follow.

The food: an intentional fusion

The dining experience – two nightly services with a maximum of 14 guests who reserve by word-of-mouth by DM-ing Ghetto Gastro on Instagram – is also in fact a carefully sequenced ritual. They enter through an unassuming garage door and are immediately ushered into a side-kitchen where Pot Likka – a collards and unani broth – is served from an altar custom built out of the USM Haller system. They’re then led into the main black-toned dining room and seated around the table where the chef’s tasting menu – right now a careful fusing of receipts and ingredients from Asian, African, and the Americas – continues to unfold. As the dishes arrive – the bluefin with rice and watermelon ‘Roll Play’ and N.O.T.I (Nori Butter Roti) – the Sun Door opens again and again, revealing what’s happening behind the scenes in the kitchen.

Aligned with Issoufou’s intersectional sustainability philosophy, the current menu reflects what Gray calls ‘cultural collusion.’ The first offering focuses on melding Asian and African influences with Americana, ‘not the white supremacy version but the Americas version: Chinese influences in Peru, the Japanese in Brazil, Indian curries throughout the West Indies,’ he explains.

‘I’ve always been a sampler, like a hip-hop producer that takes things that don’t typically go together; All of these ingredients can be used to create a new vernacular,’ Gray continues. ‘That’s what we want to do with food, space and everything else.’

Gourmega is located at 116 West Houston Street NYC 10012, USA

Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighbourhood is a study in layered urban life: along busy Fifth Avenue, a mechanic’s garage sits beside a furniture warehouse and down the block from a wholesale bakery, while modest apartment buildings give way to luxury towers. Into this mix, Green-Wood Cemetery’s new education and welcome centre, the Green-House, inserts itself with quiet assurance, its presence mediating between inheritance and change.

Designed by New York-based Architecture Research Office (ARO), the unapologetically contemporary building straddles multiple worlds, wrapping itself around – and deferring to – a landmarked greenhouse that anchors the street corner. The gesture is apt: positioned along this commercial thoroughfare, the centre becomes a new point of entry to the historic cemetery across the street, itself a place where the complexities of New York are writ large.

Founded in 1838, Green-Wood emerged from the rural cemetery movement as both burial ground and public landscape – 478 acres of hills, glacial ponds and lush vegetation set improbably within Brooklyn’s dense fabric, dotted with mausoleums and monuments. From the outset, it was conceived as a place where life and death might coexist: as much for promenades and carriage rides as for mourning. At its height, it was said to be the state’s second most popular tourist attraction, after Niagara Falls. Over time, it became the resting place of a wide-ranging cast of luminaries – ‘permanent residents,’ as they are known – from Boss Tweed to Leonard Bernstein, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Paul Auster.

By the late 20th-century, however, like many cemeteries, it had slipped into decline, open only to mourners. Then-president, Richard Moylan, recognised it would need to move beyond memorialization, understanding its value as a cultural resource mirroring the city’s history. Under his leadership, it was reopened to the public and reanimated by returning to its original premise: a place for the living.

The cemetery, now operating as a nonprofit, hosts a wide range of events and activities, from birdwatching and performances to workshops and festivals, including those that engage with mortality itself. Today, a National Historic Landmark and accredited arboretum, it remains an active cemetery and a vital cultural resource, its identity grounded in what its stewards describe as three intertwined elements—history, art and nature.

As public offerings expanded and annual visitation climbed into the hundreds of thousands, Green-Wood’s public-facing infrastructure remained largely unchanged. The cemetery envisioned a visitor centre—sited just outside its boundaries to create a more welcoming point of entry.

‘You can’t easily get people to walk through cemetery gates – no matter how elegant – because of a natural fear of confronting loss,' says Green-Wood president Meera Joshi. ‘We needed something to demystify the experience – a gentler transition onto the grounds.’

The 1895 Victorian Weir greenhouse, set down the hill from the main entry’s imposing Richard Upjohn–designed brownstone gate, offered a compelling anchor: a delicate steel-and-glass remnant of the once-thriving funerary ecosystem that surrounded the cemetery. ‘Restoring the greenhouse felt inevitable,’ says Joshi. ‘It’s what Green-Wood does – bringing history back so it can be experienced today – it’s in our DNA.’

At just 1,750 sq ft, however, it could not accommodate the necessary infrastructure or programme.

The resulting design brief called for a new building that would integrate the landmarked structure while providing classroom and exhibition space, offices, and archives – consolidating previously dispersed functions and supporting year-round use. More than a threshold, it would orient visitors to Green-Wood’s narratives and rich landscape, extending its reach to both the city at large and the surrounding Sunset Park community. ‘The new centre,’ says ARO principal Kim Yao, ‘would support their mission of continuing their transition into a cultural organization.’ Adds ARO principal Stephen Cassell, ‘In some ways, the building and greenhouse are almost symbolic of this future.’

For ARO, the challenge was one of calibration: how to build alongside a fragile historic structure without overwhelming it, while accommodating a multi-part programme. Working with restoration architect Walter B. Melvin, the team carefully rebuilt the greenhouse – replacing its glazing and much of its structural framing, and discreetly integrating life-safety, lighting and mechanical systems. A large ceramic tile map of the cemetery, based on an 1882 visitor’s map, is set into the floor, transforming the space into a flexible, light-filled venue for events and gatherings.

The new 17,000 sq ft LEED Gold building takes an L-shaped form that embraces the greenhouse while holding back from it. A low, one-storey volume with a green roof contains the lobby and classroom and sits to one side, preserving views from Fifth Avenue and allowing the historic structure to read as an object in the round. Opposite, a two-storey wing pulls away to form a landscaped entry court by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, echoing the greenery of the cemetery beyond. This volume houses galleries for collections and rotating exhibitions, research space and offices, with the archive tucked below grade in a climate-controlled suite.

Prioritising daylight and views, the architects resisted an all-glass solution. Instead, they clad the building with custom glazed terracotta—its aubergine tone a contemporary counterpoint to the Upjohn gate’s brownstone and a foil to the greenhouse’s copper roof as it patinates. Composed of a rain screen and vertically oriented baguettes acting as a brise-soleil over a curtain wall, the façade filters light and frames views while receding into the background. ‘The materiality was about tying into the cemetery’s rich palette,’ says Cassell, ‘but in a way that doesn’t compete with the greenhouse and lets it be read clearly.’

Inside, restrained finishes – porcelain tile floors, plaster ceilings, and wall panels of slatted white oak over acoustic backing – bring warmth and clarity to the interiors.

Looking ahead, the centre signals an ongoing shift in how the cemetery positions itself within the city – as a place that, as was originally intended, is engaged with the living world and with its surrounding community. ‘We can now serve more New Yorkers through diverse programming—and create space for people to better understand mortality, loss and how to navigate both,’ says Joshi.

As Yao notes, the project ultimately mirrors Green-Wood’s broader mission: ‘stewarding the past while looking to the future, quite literally, through the architecture.’

Gallery Fumi has settled into New York for a cosy three-month residency, marking the London design gallery’s longest-ever US exhibition. Nestled into a Tribeca building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, and near sculptor Anish Kapoor’s mirrored landmark, Galerie56 serves as Gallery Fumi’s temporary home for a show on view in two parts through July 2026.

With a New York residency, founders Sam Pratt and Valerio Capo deepen Gallery Fumi’s US presence following successful activations in Los Angeles and Chicago. ‘We have long-lasting relationships with US clients who are collectors as well as interior designers who keep coming to us because they are always thirsty for something new,’ Capo tells Wallpaper*.

One such client is New York architect Lee F. Mindel, who opened Galerie56 in 2022 and encouraged the duo to take up residence in the gallery. After participating in countless art and design fairs, Pratt and Capo knew the idea would give them what they currently crave the most: the luxury of time for discovery and connection. ‘We're a little bit sick of the fair concept, which is, let's say, maximum a week, most times shorter,’ says Pratt. ‘With this [residency,] we can really engage with people and meet new people. People can come multiple times. So, it just made sense.’

The first part’s theme — ‘Materials of Joy’ — is a nod to Gallery Fumi’s debut show circa 2008 titled ‘Materialism’. With 51 works by more than 15 artists and designers, the exhibition embodies Gallery Fumi’s dedication to handcrafted pieces created with wide-ranging materials and techniques. ‘It gives a good taste of what we do,’ says Capo. ‘We've always had the fascination of materials, of processes, of the handmade — all the works are made by our artists and designers in the studio. It’s a bit of our motto; the works have to be made by them.’

New works drawing attention include artist Sam Orlando Miller’s large-scale mirror with geometric complexity. Francesco Perini displays oak-and-quartzite fused furnishings guided by Tuscan marquetry techniques, while ceramicist Johannes Nagel showcases fresh pieces in glazed gold and lustre fired directly onto the ceramic.

Playing with light and motion, San Francisco-based Jesse Schlesinger features new carved wood works coated in iridescent, high-gloss automotive paint. Fueling a similar dialogue while also toying with space, studio Voukenas Petrides unveils Volumetric Console, a table made using a wax model as a temporary barrier between a gypsum mold and molten metal.

Other works give upcycled materials a new life, from British duo Jamesplumb’s functional floor light featuring old copper pipes to Lukas Wegwerth’s broken ceramics reconnected by salt crystals. Expect to also see Study O Portable’s trompe-l’œil furniture made of erasers and much more.

‘With what we do — materialism, materials — it's really helpful for people to see and touch,’ adds Pratt. ‘Images are great, but… running your hands across that table really does make a difference.’

Materials of Joy is on view through 23 May. The gallery’s second show featuring works by New York-based ceramic artist Jeremy Anderson will follow from 28 May to 8 July.

It's not every day a brand new gallery shows up at an art fair with a Jackson Pollock and a Cy Twombly for sale. But Samantha McCoy, who recently founded the Paris and New York-based gallery Argo Fine Arts, is no newcomer to the art world: Jackson Pollock was her great-uncle and her father, Jason McCoy, owned a gallery on 57th Street for more than 40 years.

'There was never a difference between work and home,' she says. 'There were always gallery dinners at at the house. There were always artists over. There were always critics. I didn't know anything else.'

This week, Argo marks its debut exhibition at the 28th edition of Art Paris, an international modern and contemporary fair set in the glorious Grand Palais.

It's been a long journey. At first, McCoy tried to carve out a different career from her family's, so studied industrial labor relations along with art history at Cornell. After university, she moved to Paris, and returned to New York two years later to work in fashion. When her father's gallery needed an extra hand, she joined him for nearly five years, until Magnum Photos hired her, which led her back to Paris. But, McCoy says, 'There was always this feeling deep down that I wanted to try working for myself.'

In the autumn of 2025 she took the leap. She named her gallery Argo after the ship upon which Jason sails in Greek mythology. For the logo, she used calligraphy designed in 1949 by another family artist, her great uncle Charles Pollock.

Declining outside investment, she opted for an 'ephemeral' gallery model. 'I tried to be realistic about what my life was and what the art world looked like, with all of these really important galleries closing,' McCoy recalls. 'I thought, I need to be true to myself; I'm between New York and Paris, and I can't afford to open a space in two places right now. Rather than real estate, I'm going to prioritise my artists and clients and collectors. I'll find a way to make that work.'

At Art Paris, McCoy is mounting a solo presentation of German artist Christiane Löhr, with a second space showcasing other artists. 'Art Paris doesn't hesitate to promote new talents long before they're recognised, or to help advance the new generation of Paris gallerists,' says the fair's director, Guillaume Piens. 'The decision of Argo Fine Arts to devote a solo show to an important figure of the German scene, who is not well known in France, won the overwhelming approval of our selection committee.'

Löhr has earned international recognition for delicate minimalist sculptures made from natural materials such as grass stalks and dandelion seeds, and organic black-and-white line drawings. One of the first pieces McCoy ever purchased was a Löhr drawing, when her father represented the artist years ago. At Art Paris, she is showing a mix of Löhr's sculptures and drawings, in dialogue with a series of Cy Twombly prints of Latin poets' names. 'Twombly has created his own visual language,' she explains, 'hearkening back to the line.'

Linear markings also characterise several works by Charles Pollock, displayed in the second space, near camera obscura photographs by the British artist Richard Learoyd (who, like Löhr, is little-known in France). A rare, early figurative landscape by Jackson Pollock comes from a private collection with 'impeccable provenance.'

Opening an art gallery is not easy, no matter who you are. It took McCoy years before finally accepting it's the right path for her. 'It's an important part of my heritage,' she says. 'I spent a lot of my youth trying to turn away from it, and proving I was worthy. The reality is, I am who I am because of my background. And I think I've built my career to a point where I don't have anything to prove anymore.'

Art Paris runs 9-12 April at the Grand Palais

In our new monthly series, we highlight the products, places and experiences we’ve bookmarked – and that you won’t want to miss.

April is high season for design, with Milan Design Week kicking off on the 19th. But if you’re not bound for Italy, there’s a whole world to explore as the days stretch longer, brighter and full of promise – especially with a four-day Easter weekend within reach. Read on for the season’s freshest fragrances to spritz, the architecture to watch for, and the art exhibitions to peruse – or the cemeteries, if that’s more your sort of thing.

The event: Milan Design Week 

Anna Solomon, digital writer

April means one thing at Wallpaper* HQ: the annual citywide showcase of Milan Design Week, and its centrepiece, Salone del Mobile. From 19-26 April, the Italian capital will transform into a vast, walkable design playground, as brands, studios and ateliers throw open their doors to unveil their collections.

Much of the team will be making the pilgrimage to take the temperature of the year ahead. I’ll be heading to Milan with Veuve Clicquot, which is launching ‘Chasing the Sun’ – a collection of design-led champagne accessories created in collaboration with British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Illori, which riffs on Veuve’s signature, joyful yellow.

Make sure to follow along via our live blog, where we’ll be sharing the week’s biggest stories as they unfold.

The exhibitions: Sylvia Sleigh and 'Eel Pie Hotel'

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

In a packed month in the cultural calendar, I'm looking forward to going more in-depth. For the crop of upcoming smaller shows – including Daniel Malarkey's celebration of artist Sylvia Sleigh and Nick Goss' take on the former island in the Thames, Eel Pie Island Hotel, at Josh Lilley – I plan on taking a closer look at the works, talking to artists and curators and gleaning a sense of how an exhibition is brought to life.

The day trip: Green-Wood Cemetery, New York

Anna Fixsen, US editor

April is one of the busiest stints on the international design calendar (I will be heading to Milan Design Week with the rest of the Wallpaper* crew), but one can’t-miss spot to visit this spring offers a place to rest – forever, if you please. Green-Wood Cemetery, considered the Père Lachaise of Brooklyn because of famous ‘residents’ including Leonard Bernstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat, is opening a brand-new visitors centre this month.

The inauguration is a significant moment in Green-Wood’s long history as one of America’s first rural cemeteries and a landscape arboretum: while the site features a grand Gothic-style arch (populated by a famous flock of rogue monk parakeets), it lacked a central gathering place to orient visitors wishing to explore its 478 rolling acres. The new building, located just across the street, was designed by local firm Architecture Research Office and combines a historic greenhouse (originally used for mourners to purchase flowers) with a glossy new terra-cotta-clad building containing exhibition, research, office and event space. Talk about a near-death experience!

The artist: Gabriella Persia

Tianna Williams, staff writer

While the lighter evenings are more than enough to look forward to this month, I am also excited to see what young artist Gabriella Persia will work on. I stumbled across her work online and was captivated by her whimsical aura and style, which sit somewhere between Shakespeare’s 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' and 1920s Paris. Her work boasts an ethereal, painterly style, offering an array of hybrid forms that seamlessly blend together – creating a glimpse of a story already in medias res. In a world where everyone is beginning to look the same, Persia stands out.

The fragrance: Ffern 

Tianna Williams, staff writer

An additional spring favourite is the sustainable perfume brand Ffern. Each fragrance is released on a solstice or equinox – turning points in the year as the Earth orbits the Sun. With four releases annually, each scent is inspired by the seasons. This particular release captures the scent of ‘blossom at first light’, evoking the fresh smells of the English countryside. This month, I am looking forward to experiencing the Perfumer’s Candle, which features notes of wild mint and thyme. Aniseed adds a warming depth, resulting in a fresh scent that evokes dew-soaked earth.

The city break: Antwerp

Sofia de la Cruz, travel editor

I’m excited for a weekend away in Antwerp, the historic Belgian port city with an avant-garde point of view. I was there last year to review the exhibition ‘Girls. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between’ at MoMu, but this time I’m hoping to make it out to Axel Vervoordt Gallery on the outskirts of the city. I love returning to places – the second time, you know exactly what you want to indulge in and how to make the most of it. A great piece of advice I once received is to always leave something unseen when travelling, so you have a reason to come back.

The opening: V&A East Museum

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

The V&A East Museum is set to be this spring’s big architecture and cultural opening. The building, which we visited while it was under construction a couple of years ago, was designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey and cuts a distinctive figure across the East Bank – no mean feat given its impressive neighbours, including a 2025 Stirling Prize nominee, the London College of Fashion by Allies and Morrison. Jayden Ali, with A Practice for Everyday Life and Larry Achiampong, have contributed to the new destination’s Why We Make galleries and connecting spaces inside – I can’t wait to take a peek. The V&A East Museum will officially open on 18 April 2026 at East Bank in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Since Enrico Bonetti and Dominic Kozerski founded their practice in New York more than a quarter of a century ago, they have made their sophisticated mark in the world of design. Among Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture’s many prestigious commissions are Pace Gallery’s New York HQ, boutiques for Tod’s, Edition hotels around the world, and private residences for music producer Rick Rubin, fashion designer Donna Karan and hotelier André Balazs. The irony is that the firm never had an office that was as intentional and custom-made as the spaces it created for its clients.

Tour the new office of Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture

For 23 years, Bonetti and Kozerski worked from the same 1920s building in SoHo, steadily annexing square footage as their practice grew. Meanwhile, the neighbourhood’s creative energy, which initially drew the firm there, had become ‘diluted’, as Bonetti describes. Just as their lease came up for renewal a couple of years ago, they learned of a vacant space in Chinatown and saw an opportunity to develop the type of studio they always wanted in an area of the city that is becoming a new destination for artists and creatives. ‘We saw this space as a 2.0 in terms of working together,’ Kozerski says. ‘It’s an experiment, and we’re still waiting to see what it’s going to mean.’

Located in a midcentury commercial building on the Bowery, Bonetti/Kozerski’s new 510 sq m workspace channels the spirit that originally drew the duo, who met while working in Peter Marino’s office in the 1990s. It’s a seductive, loft-like space that marries the firm’s love of evocative natural materials, using industrial elements decoratively, and antique and modernist design. But functionality came first and foremost and, for Bonetti and Kozerski, that meant prioritising collaboration – a necessity since the firm designs everything from academic spaces to superyacht interiors and luxury retail, and part of its success is bridging reference points from discipline to discipline in order to keep projects fresh. ‘We try not to specialise,’ Bonetti says. ‘A generalist is more important than a specialist. People do the same thing. It’s good business – just do the same thing forever – but it’s not necessarily the best for the client.’

To encourage more cross-pollination, the firm designed multiple pathways and routes through their new office. ‘We’ve always felt that architecture is a very collaborative discipline and it’s important that people are aware of other things going on in the office,’ Kozerski says. Two long work tables in the heart of the office are surrounded by smaller pavilions containing conference rooms, material libraries and a kitchen. Bonetti and Kozerski have desks in the far corners for privacy, while still being a part of the mix.

Stylistically, the architects maintained a restrained, monochromatic sensibility across the office. They painted the 4m-tall, exposed-beam ceiling matte black, choosing textured grey cement panels for the walls, and opting for a white floor. This allowed them to heighten the space’s volumetric qualities. The effect is theatrical, and it frames what is perhaps the most defining element of the office: a 23m-long expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge.

It’s a rare vantage point. Since the office is on the second storey, it is both close to the energetic flow of pedestrians, cars and cyclists just outside, yet feels like a refuge from it. From spring to autumn, the light that bounces off the span’s neoclassical stone portal, designed by the same architects as the main branch of the New York Public Library, floods the office with a golden glow, while the changing foliage of street trees within view brings in seasonality. ‘We feel the effect of the day,’ Bonetti says.

The architects relied on furniture and lighting, rather than walls, to define the space. A Lutron system enables them to choose the colour temperature for each bulb, and for the lights to adjust to circadian rhythms. In the conference rooms, they landed on a combination to make sure that everyone looks good on Zoom: warm light shining on a person’s face and cooler light on the textured wall behind them. ‘It looks like a passport photograph from 20 years ago with this sort of mottled grey background,’ Kozerski says.

Most of the furniture and objects are custom-made (or customised). An artisan in Italy made the work tables from walnut with a surface of Fenix, a durable, ultra-matte material with self-healing properties, which is helpful when stone samples inevitably scratch the surface. Industrial metal shelves from Penco hold the reference books, artefacts and found objects that architects tend to collect (in the case of Bonetti and Kozerski, these include 1930s Italian moulds, vintage hi-fi speakers from Denmark, and retro flip clocks, which allude to the firm’s love of mechanisms), as well as keepsakes from past projects, including a pool tile used for the façade of a building in Washington DC. Bonetti and Kozerski then pulled a few experiments out of storage to furnish the space. One coffee table, composed of oak trunks stained black, was originally designed for the Public Hotel in New York but rejected, while another table whose dimensions were too large for a client now serve as functional sculpture.

‘We always love when we get a challenge to do something that we haven’t done before, and we kind of go deep and spend way too much time on it, which is not good economics, but good fun for us,’ says Kozerski. ‘We learn a lot, learn from mistakes, and try a lot of stuff. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.’

These Easter eggs from the firm’s past also serve as useful reference points: a Japanese washi paper lamp that informed an eventual design for Donna Karan’s Hamptons house stands in a seating area near Bonetti’s desk; the firm is now adapting it for the guest rooms of a hotel in Ibiza after their client fell in love with the original. To help clients and staff visualise dimensions, Bonetti/Kozerski labelled walls with measurements – a detail borrowed from Avenues, a private school in Manhattan, which the firm designed.

Since moving into their new space, Bonetti and Kozerski have found an unexpected use for their office: as a place to entertain. Their kitchen, sourced from industrial supply stores on the Bowery, is large enough for a chef, and so they have hosted dinner parties with friends, colleagues and artists. This wasn’t part of the original plan, but ‘once we realised how much we liked the office, we thought we should take advantage,’ Bonetti says. ‘Now we have the chance to invite people over, not for a meeting but for a conversation.’ In the future, a creative exchange at one of those events might ignite their next great collaboration.

bonettikozerski.com

This article appears in the April 2026 Global Interiors Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 5 March 2025. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

During the Gilded Age, young, single women flocked to New York to seek their fortunes as factory workers, secretaries and shop workers. There was just one problem: where this emerging class of career women might find affordable and – more importantly – ‘respectable’ lodging.

Enter heiress and philanthropist Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard, who, along with the Young Women’s Christian Association, constructed a ladies-only Romanesque Revival revival boarding house just off Union Square in 1891. As a Progressive Era periodical noted at the time, ‘Professional and business women earning good salaries are naturally the chief patrons of this home.’

One hundred and 35 years on, the Margaret Louisa Home is still hosting guests. Only now, it welcomes visitors of all stripes as The Twenty Two. Just like its mother property, a tony Grosvenor Square address of the same name in London, The Twenty Two New York is a unique hybrid concept that merges a hotel, dining destination and members’ club under one roof. Unlike its English counterpart, however, the Manhattan version – with sophisticated interiors by celebrated London practice Child Studio – was built for a New York minute. Here’s what to expect from your stay.

Wallpaper* checks in at The Twenty Two New York

What’s on your doorstep?

The Twenty Two is located on 16th Street, just steps away from Union Square Park, the verdant urban respite at the convergence of ‘Uptown’ and ‘Downtown’. In addition to being a welcome slice of green and hosting one of the city’s most famous farmers’ markets, Union Square Park conceals a public transit hub, allowing you to zip seamlessly through the borough. But The Twenty Two offers plenty of sightseeing accessible on foot, too. Head uptown along Broadway, and you’ll be standing in the shadow of New York’s landmark Daniel Burnham-designed Flatiron Building in minutes. Walk south along Fifth Avenue for ten minutes, and you’ll be beneath the Washington Square Arch, where shopping, dining and people watching in charming Greenwich Village awaits.

Who is behind the design?

The hotel’s gracious interiors were designed by Alexy Kos and Che Huang of Child Studio. They had worked with clients Navid Mirtorabi, Jamie Reuben and Michael Chetrit before, but the Twenty Two was a much larger project, some five years in the making. Fortunately for Kos and Huang, the historic building offered plenty of inspiration: ‘It has a fascinating history,’ Kos says. ‘We work within historic contexts a lot and we think about how to respond to it in a subtle and understated way without going into replica or pastiche.’ The duo pored over period photos of the Margaret Louisa Home and its diminutive yet comfortable rooms. ‘That quiet domesticity is something we wanted to translate into the interiors,’ Kos says.

That feeling is apparent as soon as you are warmly greeted by a porter in the hotel’s entry. The snug lobby features Gilded Age-inspired touches – the concierge desk, framed by velvet curtains, has the feeling of a Victorian dry-goods counter – but retains a modern feel thanks to lofty ceilings, a muted palette and archways. ‘Arches was one of the elements we discovered in the archival photos,’ Huang adds.

There are nods to The Twenty Two’s London outpost (you’ll pass by photographs of Mick Jagger and Queen Elizabeth II in a vestibule and both members’ clubs feature leopard print carpet), the interiors here are more subdued – an interlude from the hustle and bustle outside.

The room to book

There are 78 rooms and suites at the hotel. And just like its original incarnation as the women’s hotel, the rooms exude a delightfully cosy feel. Unlike those quarters (which set patrons back 50 cents a day), the present rooms are anything but spartan. Visitors can choose from four varieties of rooms (deluxe, standard, nook and classic) and while some are more snug than others, all feel gracious thanks to high ceilings, natural light and handsome, glossy mouldings, 19th-century inspired custom furnishings and plush herringbone-patterned carpets (a nod to the London location).

Drama and hue are amped up across The Twenty Two’s 19 suites. ‘Colour was introduced gradually as the project evolved,’ Kos explains. ‘Colours come through in the textiles – there are a lot of very lush fabrics and deep tones.’ The hotel’s crowning glory – literally – is the dramatic penthouse Twenty Two Suite, which features a soaring pitched ceiling, a dedicated sitting room (equipped with a fully stocked bar) and two bedrooms. The creation of this suite was one of the project’s most complex elements; in keeping with original 19th-century drawings, the design team opted to set a period-appropriate gable roof atop the building.

For the interiors, Child Studio looked to the neighbourhood’s nearby green spaces – including Union Square park and the ultra-exclusive Gramercy Park. Therefore, the soaring sitting area is wrapped in a beautiful scenic wallpaper depicting images of wind-swept trees and shrubs. ‘The idea was a fantasy version of the park,’ Huang explains.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

The surrounding area has plenty of dining options, but The Twenty Two’s ground-floor restaurant, Café Zaffri, is by far the most atmospheric. The eatery comes courtesy of Jennifer and Nicole Vitagliano, the sister duo behind the popular Noho restaurant Raf’s. Instead of Italian and French cuisine, Café Zaffri (known as Zaf’s) offers elevated reinterpretations of Mediterranean dishes. The sprawling setting, which includes a light-filled atrium for more casual meals as well as a more formal, wood-clad dining room, was designed by Brooklyn-based firm Post Company.

As with the rest of the hotel, the spaces draw from old world restaurants, as seen in details like stained glass, embroidered wallcoverings, mosaic tile floors and plush curtains. After sleeping in, have a breakfast of labneh and pistachio granola or shakshuka beneath the dramatic skylight. Or, in advance of a night on the town, head back to the sexier dining room for lamb Wellington, saffron-scented spaghetti, or short rib glazed in Lebanese spices.

Where to switch off

If you musn't skip Leg Day, The Twenty Two has a small-yet-stylish gym, outfitted with chequerboard cork floors and state-of-the-art Technogym equipment. Guests can also opt to set up personal training sessions courtesy of ​​S10 Training, a luxury gym nearby.

For an added layer of exclusivity, you could also opt to enroll in The Twenty Two’s members-only club (annual dues are around $3,000 a year), which occupies the hotel’s upper levels and includes a private restaurant, Living Room salon and a roof terrace. While these spaces are largely off-limits to hotel guests (though this journalist cracked open her laptop and had a spot of tea in the Living Room), the Victoriana vibes carry through. ‘It’s a bit Gothic, bringing a bit of Old World Europe to these spaces,’ Huang explains.

The Living Room, for instance, is anchored by a 19th-century stone fireplace and, like many of The Twenty Two’s spaces, is swaddled in drapes and velvet upholstery. But leopard-print carpet – inspired by legendary tastemaker Madeleine Castaing’s Paris salon – adds a touch of cheek. Go up another floor and you’ll encounter an exclusive nightclub, wrapped in a fabric inspired by Renzo Mongiardino’s tented rooms. But the space is party-ready, thanks to a constellation of Fortuny lanterns and a central disco ball. What are such evenings like? You’ll have to join to find out.

The verdict

Hotels are, by definition, for hosting out-of-towners. But The Twenty Two offers something for locals, too – whether you opt to have a croissant and a coffee in the airy café, or splash out for a membership at the club. If you’re just passing through New York, The Twenty Two also offers that special something, from the well-appointed quarters and the warm service to the basket of clementines on a side table – respectability that Margaret Louisa herself would surely approve of.

The Twenty Two New York is located at 16 E 16th St, New York, NY 10003

When Korean entrepreneur Haeyoung Cha launched a fragrance brand in 2019, she named it Nonfiction, an homage to the quiet stories that make up everyday life.

The story of how Cha found her first-ever US store, though, practically wrote itself. On a scouting trip to New York, she came across a corner storefront on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that was flooded with natural light. While she’d seen plenty of prospective spaces to potentially house a boutique, this one hadn't been on her agent’s list. ‘I just walked up the street and saw the “for rent” sign. And we called up the landlord,’ Cha says. The space was hers.

This week, Cha and her team are finally opening the doors to Nonfiction’s only dedicated North American flagship, after launching locations across South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. Nonfiction has become wildly popular in those markets for its delicate perfumes and skincare; natural ingredients; and minimal retail spaces defined by neutral palettes of cream, white and wood. To gain a foothold in New York, however, Cha wanted something different. ‘We wanted to create a space that felt like it always existed. We didn't want it to be something that was so brand new and flashy, but something that could really fit into this neighbourhood.’

The Lower East Side – more specifically the ‘Dimes Square’ enclave where the storefront sits – reminded Cha of Seoul’s Hannam-dong neighbourhood, where she established the first Nonfiction boutique, or pre-gentrification Williamsburg in Brooklyn. She wanted a designer that could offer a refined version of that creative spirit. So she tapped the award-winning design firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero (CHH), a multidisciplinary practice known for its interplay of history and wit. ‘The thing that was interesting to us was the idea of mixing eras and artists,’ explains architect and firm principal Andre Herrero. ‘It really was thought of as a gallery, in a way.’

Rather than ‘white box it’, the design team aimed to create a space that had a residential feel. As such, their moodboard was filled with images of ‘domestic art-space interiors’: Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet’s Maison de Verre in Paris; Carlo Scarpa-designed museum displays; and Philip Johnson’s Houston residence for John and Dominique de Menil.

At first blush, the Nonfiction store has a minimal feel, with its lime-washed walls and slick finishes, but gradually – as you take in the soft scents of cedarwood, blackcurrant and rose that waft through the space – the sophistication of the scheme reveals itself. The floors, for instance, are covered in glossy, oxblood red tiles, a move that introduces a hit of colour while visually grounding the space. At its centre, is a wood table displaying Nonfiction’s perfumes; rather than specifying a more contemporary design, in true CHH fashion, the team introduced a custom Queen-Anne style table designed by Doug McCollough. A hand-washing niche at the store’s rear is clad in tiles depicting black roses hand-painted by CHH principal Adam Charlap-Hyman’s mother, artist Pilar Almon.

The antique-y vibes are juxtaposed with slicker, modernist references. Stainless steel shelving displaying creams, haircare, candles and gift sets, for instance, take the form of a grid reminiscent of Maison de Verre’s façade. A stairwell at the front of the store is concealed within a sculptural triangular volume. And a custom, ceiling-height tubular column light bathes the space in soft light. It all, says Herrero, ‘contributes to this very compositional array of objects on this cool glossy floor’.

While the Nonfiction store has a decidedly New York feel, it was important to showcase the work of Korean artists, says Cha, who, prior to starting the brand, ran an art collective in Seoul. Most notable are works by New York-based Korean designer and frequent Nonfiction collaborator Minjae Kim, which include an abstract aluminum chair and a glowing fibreglass and resin sconce with a delicate white cord secured by a single tack. Also on display is a painting by artist Chulhwa Kwon, surrounded by an antique frame.

‘Sometimes I ask myself, is it fiction or nonfiction,’ Cha says, reflecting on her brand’s name and evolution. ‘Because I have a lot of personas – I am a wife, a daughter and a boss – and sometimes connecting with yourself is hard.’ By introducing her fragrances to new customers, she hopes to make that task just a bit easier and, hopefully, coax them to write their own next chapter.

Nonfiction is located at 38 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

If you happened to walk down Prince Street in New York’s Nolita neighbourhood these past few years, you probably noticed a new angular structure rising next to the ‘stacked box’ New Museum, completed by Japanese architecture firm SANAA in 2007.

The new tower, designed by OMA in collaboration with Cooper Robertson (now Corgan), was slated to be a separate yet connected extension, doubling the museum’s overall square footage to 120,000 sq ft. After a decade of development, the museum finally reopens this Saturday (21 March). It marks OMA’s first cultural project in the city, completed almost five decades after firm founder Rem Koolhaas published his seminal manifesto, Delirious New York.

'It’s not simply an extension, but a complement, a counterpart,' Koolhaas said in a video address (the Pritzker prize-winning architect was unable to attend a media preview due to a construction site injury). ‘We didn’t want to compete with scale. We interpreted the commission as if there were two parts that were finally united and that would form a single entity.’

While the two halves appear diametrically opposed – one formed as offset rectilinear volumes and the other a cut-crystal form with oblique setbacks – the spatial flow inside is seamless. The bulk of the expansion comprises four floors of galleries, which host an inaugural show titled 'New Humans: Memories of the Future.' These greatly expanded exhibition spaces extend across both buildings, with little indication of whether you're entering the new building or the old. There’s flexibility in how these open floor plates can be segmented and programmed, more than the existing building offered. As New Museum president Lisa Phillips put it, the addition can be thought of as an ‘insurance policy for the future’.

A series of carefully introduced interstitial spaces – an unfolding atrium staircase and a new street-facing plaza – also address the museum’s present and anticipate a future beyond just art-viewing: ‘Museums are the last truly public spaces in our cities,’ OMA New York director Shohei Shigematsu says – platforms for communities to gather and exchange ideas.

The street-facing atrium staircase, for instance, works to connect different groups of visitors, whether they’re browsing the galleries or catching a lecture. As part of the opening exhibition, a fibre artwork by Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová tumbles down four storeys. The three uppermost levels contain artist studios, offices, a 75-seat forum and a set of ‘sky rooms’, all of which comprise what the museum calls its ‘brain’.

One of OMA’s chief challenges was to telegraph the museum’s range of programming to the street; the SANAA-designed building was a ‘stacked pillar of art’, Shigematsu explains. ‘We needed to create a sense of transparency to outwardly communicate the diversity of activity taking place here’.

True to practice for OMA, this was achieved through the strategic configuration of the building’s massing. While it might seem like it’s pulling away from its counterpart, it’s actually making way for the plaza, which will soon be home to an installation by British artist Sarah Lucas.

The considered deployment of exterior cladding and glazing was also critical. Nodding to the metal mesh façade next door, Shigematsu and his team opted for a fine mesh laminated in sheets of glass. When sunlight hits the façade during the day, it takes on a metallic quality but one can still look outside from various vantage points and feel connected to the city. ‘During the day it has a monolithic quality and at night it exposes the anatomy of what’s going on inside,’ Shigematsu says. On long-term view at the intersection of the old and new façades is the site-specific sculpture titled Art Lovers by Tschabalala Self.

Interior finishes are largely kept to a minimum, but there are moments of excitement. The ground-floor restaurant, which will open later this spring, features materials like cork and textured glass. The stairway balustrades are made out of two layers of back-lit metal mesh, painted from behind in the New Museum’s signature green. The colour appears to glow at every turn.

Shigematsu likened the two buildings to a human couple, united yet unique. ‘The two buildings are similar but different,' he says.

The New Museum will open to the public on 21 March 2026 at 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002

Before there was a West Elm or a Williams Sonoma in every major city, Robert Stilin was selling furniture from his Palm Beach concept store in the 1990s. 'It was definitely ahead of its time,' he recalls. The interior designer later opened a similar space in the Hamptons, but after moving to New York City and finding success crafting aspirational residential interiors, the dream of reopening a shop was put on hold.

Over the years, Stilin waited for the right moment – and the right space – to present itself, continually collecting furniture and home décor in the meantime. This month, a curated selection of those pieces has finally become available at the newly opened Robert Stilin Shop, dedicated to custom upholstered furniture, antique and vintage pieces, 21st-century design, collectible furniture, as well as lighting, curated objects and art.

The gallery is conveniently located in the same building – and on the same floor – as Stilin’s interior design office in NoMad. The corner space within the St James Building, which has plenty of pre-war charm and is flooded with natural light during the day, serves as an extension of his creative vision and brand. 'The concept of this space is that people can walk into a Robert Stilin environment, and everything’s for sale,' the designer says. 'It makes an impact, and it has a great vibe and feeling. I could sit in here all day.'

The wide variety of pieces on display were sourced during Stilin’s travels around the world and reflect the strength of the relationships he has built over the past 30 years with American and international dealers, as well as artists and designers. Examples include a sculptural bronze coffee table by contemporary designer Diego Villarreal Vagujhelyi positioned beside custom-upholstered sofas, while everything from a Scandinavian midcentury desk to Stilin’s own sconces and vintage crystal finials is on view. 'We find a lot of things that are anonymous,' Stilin says. 'They don’t necessarily have a big name, but they’re extremely high quality, unusual and different.'

The space will also host several exhibitions each year, spotlighting artists and personal friends of the designer. The first will debut in May 2026 with works by Alessio Boni, an Italian photographer based in Paris whom Stilin has followed for the past two decades. Future collaborations with other galleries and emerging curators are also in the works.

The opening of the Robert Stilin Shop coincides with a boom in contemporary design spaces across New York City, reflecting both renewed interest in residential furniture and growing digital fatigue with online shopping. 'People want to reconnect with reality, rather than just looking at a picture online,' says Stilin. 'Also, I think a lot of people have realised that those pictures don’t always tell the truth.'

At the same time, he notes a shortage of vintage dealers – particularly in New York and across North America – many of whom closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Part of his aim with the Robert Stilin Shop is to help fill that gap.

The space and its contents reflect Stilin’s brand values of 'authenticity, comfort and function'. This deeply personal project allows him to further demonstrate his eye and taste, offer clients a place to view pieces in person and interact with his team, and finally sell a portion of the vast collection he has amassed over the years. 'I’m a collector, and I’m an acquirer, and I’m a shopper,' Stilin says. 'I can’t stop myself, and now I have to share it with the world because I can’t afford to keep all this and not make any money.'