New York Design Week—also known as NYCxDesign—is back, with an energy and creative output undeterred by any expectations of industry tariff challenges. Major fair ICFF/Wanted and newcomer Shelter are anchoring a robust program of city-wide showcases exploring everything from material experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration to the continuous reinvention of what functionality and sustainability entail.
The extensive event—officially taking place from May 15 to 21 with independent shows extending well before these dates—comes on the heels of an equally jam-packed Frieze Week. This year’s design week offers a dynamic crop of product launches, thematic group shows, and a surprising number of new showrooms, bucking the trend that has seen brands move away from brick-and-mortar retail in the past decade. Here, AD PRO has put together a comprehensive guide of what to see and where to grab a bite or drink along the way. First, start with our early favorites, and then keep reading for more tips and tricks for navigating this year’s fair.
NYCxDesign highlights: AD editors’ picks
Juntos Projects at Assembly Line
For anyone familiar with the world of General Assembly, helmed by Colin Stief and Sarah Zames, their focus on natural elements and superior craft is well established. Assembly Line, their Brooklyn brick-and-mortar, is where they play. The exhibition, “Every Shadow is a Color,” spotlights the work of Juntos Projects, another New York talent, whose use of color on solid maple forms is otherworldly and exciting—from deep oxblood to almost extraterrestrial greens, except the unexpected. —Rachel Fletcher, commerce director, AD
Shelter
A welcome addition to the design week landscape, Shelter by Afternoon Light debuted this year with a roster of exhibitors that stretches from NYC mainstays like Roll & Hill, Bower, Colony, and Mattermade to a host of up-and-comers—many of which were on display in the event’s Jonald Dudd showcase curated by Chen Chen and Kai Williams. The latter proved the usual goldmine of weird and wonderful objects by young talent, adding some design world street cred to what is still, at the root of it, a trade show. At Shelter, I was able to reconnect with a slice of the American design scene that has felt absent—or perhaps just too atomized—in recent years. —Hannah Martin, senior design editor, AD
Manchaha by Jaipur Living
Jaipur Living works with some 40,000 artisans from rural villages across India and one of their special lines, called Manchaha, empowers weavers to create their own designs. The vibrant creations, mostly made by women, are being displayed in a gallery setting for the first time in the US, at VFA Gallery. Be sure to take a close look, as the details—often influenced by objects in the artists' own lives—are the real standout. —Allie Weiss, digital director, AD
Verso at Nine Chapel
Verso returns with a site-specific takeover of Nine Chapel, a striking 14-story tower in Brooklyn designed by SO-IL and developed by Tankhouse. Enter through a sunken garden and into the resident lounge, where Pasto, a years-long collaboration with Argentine studio Ries, anchors the ground floor with cast aluminum works. As you ascend through private residences, curated pieces—from groovy mirrors to sculptural glassware to bold chairs by designers like Alex Proba, Office of Tangible Space, Soft Witness, and Willo Perron for No Ga—appear organically throughout, transforming the building into a dreamlike domestic setting that feels equal parts exhibition and intimate gathering. —Zoe Sessums, senior digital design editor, AD
Bespoke Salon by MAWD at ICFF
To devise a captivating refuge within the stark, grand halls of a convention center like the Javits Center is no easy feat, but with the Bespoke Salon at ICFF, AD PRO Directory firm March and White Design (MAWD) has done just that, integrating the artisan works and materials featured within the fair section dedicated to skilled craftspeople. From the lattice cork walls infused with natural scents to the custom-finished piano by Edelweiss, the setting kindles a mutli-sensory experience rooted in sustainability and craft—and it’s well worth a visit. —Mel Studach, senior editor, AD PRO
What, when, where
As with most international trade and cultural events held in the post-pandemic era, this roughly week-long festival is placing particular focus on an ever-resilient and creative local scene; one forged as much out of entrepreneurship as collectivity, if not also openness and resourcefulness. That isn’t to say that New York’s global nature isn’t also being highlighted. As it unfolds, NYCxDesign will reveal the latest from this evolving discipline. From the widely expressive to the carefully pared back, there’s something for everyone.
Held at the Javits Center from May 18 to 20, ICFF (and its integrated sister showcase, Wanted) is design week’s anchor event, hosting nearly 400 exhibitors. The convention center is easily accessible using the 7 subway line and the 34 Street–Hudson Yards subway station. With entrances on 11th Avenue, the building is also only a few minutes’ walk from rail-linked Penn Station.
New staging by designer Rodolfo Agrella of New York–based studio RADS promises a more immersive experience than in previous years, including dedicated exhibitions like Rarify’s “Form & Forest,” which will highlight 1950s and 1960s furniture by legendary designers like Hans Wegner, Finn Juhl, and Sori Yanagi—works that exemplify the pinnacle of joinery and material innovation of their time. AD and AD PRO’s returning salon “Bespoke: The Art of Making” will be crafted by AD PRO Directory firm March and White Design with the look and feel of a boutique hotel lobby, hosting fireside chats and a showcase of nearly 20 international studios specializing in artisanal techniques, from furniture-making to finishing. Other brands celebrating historic design at the fair will include Bend, Oregon–based Fernweh Woodworking’s Oxbend Windsor chair, a reinterpreted traditional steam-bent wood seat, and Brooklyn-based ceramics practice Sin, debuting its Egyptian obelisk-inspired Obel and Stria lighting collections.
Innovative—and sometimes unexpected—collaborations will also be fair highlights this year. Swedish brand Layered will debut a collection with abstract artist Heather Chontos, rendering her intuitive compositions in wool sourced from New Zealand. Morpho—an Art Nouveau–inspired furniture line developed by Belgian electronic music festival Tomorrowland, furniture brand Ethnicraft, and architect Dieter Vander Velpen—will make its United States debut. And if you need a space to relax, reset, or answer a few emails throughout the week, Connecticut-based architectural lighting manufacturer Juniper will open its Recharge Lounge, designed with HBF, to all fairgoers.
Imagined as an agora for an industry always in flux, Shelter, by online home platform Afternoon Light, will gather over 100 of today’s edgiest brands, design galleries, and independent practitioners at its inaugural edition—“Mart Nouveau”—at the Starrett-Lehigh Building from May 17 to 19. Design companies like Audo Copenhagen and Stellar Works will show their latest collections alongside those of their solo peers, including Helena, Montana-based Kelsie Rudolph’s sculptural ceramic furniture, neotenic furnishings by N.Shook—also the force behind well-entrenched Brooklyn gallery Piscina—and geometrically playful mirrors by Garnier Pingree, based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Notable collaborations will include Avram Rusu Studio and furniture practice Token’s striking installation, showcasing new collections for both that address the tension between urban structures and organic forms while local industrial designer Henry Julier is putting his own take on the USM Haller modular system, incorporating Danish paper cord to counterbalance the iconic metallic design with a touch of warmth. Gallery presentations will include group exhibit “Grateful Dudd” curated by Brooklyn mavericks Chen Chen and Kai Williams for the ever-provocative design platform Jonalddudd and including local talents like ceramist Devin Wilde, as well as Brooklyn-based gallery and manufacturer Matter Made, showing new additions to founder Jamie Gray’s Delphi lighting collection.
Where to wine and dine
New, trendy, and near-impossible-to-reserve restaurants are always popping up in New York. This season, it's the Billy Cotton–designed Bridges that’s capturing everyone’s attention—and making the case for the return of glass blocks. For more low-key downtown eateries, there’s Revelie Luncheonette, an offshoot of beloved brasserie Raoul’s that’s perfect for those roaming SoHo. Nearby Bibliotheque is great for afternoon coffee or tea.
A short stroll from the Javits Center, the Ritz Carlton Nomad’s Zaytinya will provide with Mediterranean fare in abundance—enough to sustain an afternoon of touring downtown storefronts. Swan Room and Le Dive in micro-neighborhood Dimes Square have become local favorites, and offer worthy destinations for end-of-day libations.
Design around town
As always, New York Design Week will be dominated by a myriad of group shows highlighting the innovative and resourceful fervor that defines the New York design scene—still very much made up of autonomous talents. Emerging designers Caleb Ferris, Kiki Goti, Vincent Staropoli, and NJ Roseti are curating “Forced Perspective,” including work by themselves and 12 contemporaries that will explore how design can grapple with some of today’s most pressing issues: media distorting political and social views, misinformation, and disunity. It runs May 19 to 20 at locally beloved restaurant Radio Star in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Also in the borough, recently established gallery Zarolat will present limited edition designs by Lisa Sacco, Edoardo Cozzani, Phil Greenberg, and others that “challenge the architecture of control.”
Culturemaker Emily Marant is exploring the opposite at new SoHo gallery Amélie du Chalard, tracing the evolving relationship between design and the natural world through works that suggest how material and function can respond to organic systems, while Juntos Projects, Tino Seubert, Caroline Kable, and 15 other designers are exploring desire at Lower East Side homeware outfit Fredericks & Mae from May 7 to 31. Nearby, Lyle Gallery and Hello Human will debut “Outside/In,” an exhibition of young new generation designers reshaping the industry from outside the establishment.
Other presentations of emerging talents will include Tangent, open only on May 10 in Long Island City, Dudd Haus and Blu Dot’s “This is Not a Strut” on view from May 17 to 26 at the latter’s NoMad showroom, and Love House’s new Lower East Side spot will host the gallery’s first-ever group presentation from May 9 to 31. Early this month, Tribeca-based cooperative gallery Colony is exhibiting the North American practices that founder Jean Lin has helped cultivate while Invisible Collection is curating its Upper East Side town house with high-craft pieces by AD PRO Directory designer Courtney Applebaum, Biehler Gravelein, and other design studios.
In addition to the work shown at the fairs, local galleries and design showrooms are debuting collections independently across town. The Future Perfect will present Lindsey Adelman’s latest illuminated sculptures and is partnering with Tiwa Select to cohost AD100 designer Faye Toogood’s Lucid Dream collection of hand-painted, one-of-a-kind furniture and lighting pieces across the two venues. Both showcases open on May 1 and run through the rest of the spring.
Other lighting collections launching during this year’s New York Design Week include Apparatus’s extended Median collection and Blue Green Work’s Daisy luminaire series—inspired by hand-drawn flowers. David Weeks Studio is debuting Archer—a sculptural pendant 15 years in the making while Lawson-Fenning is opening a new exhibition featuring new designs by Wilde, Addison Woolsey, and a new lighting collection by O&G Studio.
For some designers, the week is an opportunity to try something new. Marking a bold shift in his material exploration, Danny Kaplan is debuting collections of rugs, metal furniture, and mirrors (the latter in collaboration with designer Joseph Algieri) at his recently opened NoHo showroom; Salt Lake City designer Emily Thurman is debuting her first collection of furniture, lighting, and sculptural objects, entitled Hundō, at 86 Walker Street in Tribeca; AD100 designer Shawn Henderson unveils the Pyrion, a lighting collaboration with Rupp Studio on view at Hostler Burrows; Zak + Fox draws inspiration from the wilderness and sea for its latest foray into high-performance outdoor textiles. Multifaceted practice Pelle is yet again showcasing a variety of new furnishings and lighting concepts—stemming from their divergent interests in drawing, painting, and form-finding—within their expansive Red Hook studio. Calico has teamed up with British designer Lee Broom on the new drapery and trompe l’oeil wallpaper collection.
History is also playing muse for a few new lines. While Herman Miller is paying homage to New Mexico with a limited-run collection, Design Within Reach will introduce a GUBI and Pierre Paulin experience in SoHo featuring launches from the iconic designer. Fellow French AD100 designer Pierre Yovanovitch will mount the ETE 25 showcase of new furniture and lighting at his Chelsea showroom. Brooklyn gallery and industry resource Assembly Line has teamed up with up-and-coming practice Juntos Projects for an immersive Josef Albers-inspired installation opening May 14.
This year’s New York Design Week will also be marked by a number of new showroom and gallery openings. Swiss furniture producer Vitra is putting down roots in a large light-filled space on the border of Chinatown and Tribeca. Midcentury Brazilian furniture purveyor Bossa Furniture is opening an annex in Chelsea on May 7, while Italian glass mosaic tile brand Bisazza is revealing its NoMad showroom on May 16.
Collectible design galleries AM Collective and Radnor have also expanded into new locations, the former in a West Village town house and the latter in a sprawling unit on the 70th floor of Sutton Tower in Midtown East. Two stories up is Galerie Gabriel, which will host a Michael Bargo–curated exhibit celebrating the transatlantic legacy of the historic but long defunct Galerie Néotù.
A good way to see a lot at once is during one of the five neighborhood-oriented events that spread throughout New York Design Week. Counting Artemest Galleria, Les Ateliers Courbet, Bossa Furniture, Dobrinka Salzman Gallery, Eteline, Friedman Benda, and Pierre Yovanovitch Mobilier among its open house offerings, Chelsea Design Night will take place on May 15 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The next night, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m, the Mercer Street Block Party will open SoHo and Tribeca venues Amelie du Chalard, BDDW, Calico/Stellar Works, Henrybuilt and Space Theory, Kasthall, Nordic Knots, and Orior to the public while showrooms in the NoMad Design District toast industry visitors at invite-only cocktail parties. SoHo Design Day takes place on May 18 and Dumbo x Design Day rounds out the week on May 21. The latter will see many of the Brooklyn neighborhood's design spaces participate: VISO Project, Hudson Wilder, Sixpenny, Mark Jupiter, Zarolat, Henrybuilt, and AD PRO Directory studio Post Company.
Where to spot AD editors
ICFF Talks: Design for the Senses
Sunday, May 18 | 12:30 p.m.–1 p.m.
Bespoke Salon at the Javits Center
Join AD PRO senior editor Mel Studach and Elliot March, cofounder of March and White Design (MAWD), an AD PRO Directory member and designer of the Bespoke x AD PRO Salon.
ICFF Talks: The Power of Bespoke Craftsmanship
Monday, May 19 | 12:30 p.m.–1:15 p.m.
Bespoke x AD PRO Salon at the Javits Center
Join AD digital director Allie Weiss, Star Tile partner and designer Andrea Keller, and Thomas Norman in conversation at the Bespoke x AD PRO Salon.
