Concluding with Part 3 of a tour around the showrooms and exhibitions held during NYCxDesign 2025. This collection spotlights the work of a lesser known Danish designer at Fritz Hansen, famous NYC landmarks replicated from MUJI products, and a tour of a designer showcase set up in one of Brooklyn’s newest architectural landmarks.
Photos and Text: Dave Pinter
Chroma
Located in the atrium of WSA 180, Chroma felt like stepping into a surreal underwater environment. The installation was curated by Nadja Stäubli of Zurich-based Studio Sula and presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland. Exhibited were sculptural pieces by Stäubli, furniture by Atelier Ot, Impact Acoustic, Röthusberger and USM.
Poul Kjærholm | Fritz Hansen
The Fritz Hansen showroom in Soho held the first American exhibition dedicated Danish modernist designer Poul Kjærholm. Known for self organizing his designs into a numerically defined categories, Kjærholm worked at the intersection of industrial precision combined with natural materials. Kjærholm was a master of designing elegant structures that relied on a minimal amount of material. It was a refreshing palette cleanser from the current trend of chunky blobjects.
Kvadrat Febrik
Myr & Mylla are two new knitted textiles introduced by Kvadrat Febrik. Swedish design firm Note Design Studio created the installation of jumbo sized pillows.
small MUJI
Tatsuya Tanaka meticulously creates miniature vignettes of cities, landscapes and street scenes. His materials of choice are MUJI products. For NYCxDesign, MUJI’s flagship store on 5th Ave presented a collection of 20 works created by Tanaka, with three of them being new and specific to NYC. Times Square was recreated with MUJI storage boxes, Central Park rendered with a green t-shirt and blue socks, and the lower Manhattan skyline formed from a row of densely packed notepads and planners.
Verso
Nomadic design gallery Verso staged a trio of exhibitions within the newly completed Brooklyn residential building, Nine Chapel. Designed by SO-IL, the most striking feature is the facade covered in undulating perforated metal panels. The exhibition itself spread across three units including the penthouse and ground floor lounge. As I mentioned with a visit to the Future Perfect’s LA showroom, it’s always nice to see furniture pieces displayed in an appropriate context.
Pasto by Ries is a collection of aluminum furniture made by a lost casting technique using Argentine pampas grass. Bundles of grass are burned away in the process leaving their structure and texture in the final pieces.
Brazilian brand Wentz occupied a duplex for their first US presentation of furniture and lighting. The collection on display included WE—KNIT, a proprietary 3D-woven fabric made from ocean-harvested PET bottles.