As 2024 winds down, I decided to take stock of the spaces, places, and objects I saw that served as a reminder that—amid all of the acrimonious ugliness that filled our various feeds this year—people are still making cool things out there. This is an incomplete list of design that made an impression.
John Cameron Mitchell’s “Queer Art Church”
The polymath writer, director, performer behind Hedwig, and other culture-defining work, renovated a truly strange house in New Orleans. The former regional HQ of the Order Templi Orientis (the esoteric society once helmed by Alister Crowley), the home’s defining feature is a large ballroom, and Cameron Mitchell uses the space as a venue for performances, drawing classes, and all kinds of events. Ahead of our January 2024 feature, I was lucky enough to attend one and check out the recent renovation and outsized Art Nouveau addition by Mitchell Kulkin and Justin Barton with Studio West Design & Architecture and Arch Builders.
Alessandro Mendini at the Triennale
The vogue for all things Memphis has certainly waned, but a career-spanning Mendini retrospective in Milan showed the work of a titan of Italian postmodernism enduring beyond any trend. Titled Io Sono un Drago after a self-portrait with the text “Io Non Sono un Architectto, Sono un Drago” (I am not an architect, I am a dragon), the exhibition covered everything from his industrial design for all kinds of brands to his years at Domus and early artwork.
Ceramic and Glass at Alcova
What replaced the Memphis trend? Surrealism. As in art and fashion, design got weird in 2024 with uncanny objects appearing everywhere. That included at the Alcova fair in Milan back in April. Two highlights in the show were a set of ceramic sconces by Seoul studio WKND Lab and, at a presentation by design gallery Adorno, glassware by Poland’s Szklo Studio.
An Elegantly Industrial Kitchen at Salone del Mobile
Danish kitchen artists VIPP never disappoint when they unveil new materials and configurations for their custom work, and their all-aluminum island at Milan’s sprawling Salone del Mobile didn’t disappoint. Check out everything my colleague Duncan Nielsen saw (and liked) at the fair in his report from this year’s Salone del Mobile.
A Chair Collab at Dimore Studio
French fashion brand Yves Salomon and furniture maker Chapo Creation teamed up to make a series of chairs that were on view at Milan’s Dimore Studio. Mixing wood with beautiful joinery and textiles with bright patterns and a deep texture, the pairing worked out extremely well. You can see them and everything Julia Stevens, Dwell’s former style editor, liked around Milan during Salone del Mobile in her dispatch. (We miss you, Julia!)
Rare Forms
In New York, the online shop Rarify, specializing in, well, rare vintage furniture, had a presentation of enviable objects at ICFF last spring. Check out everything else Ian Zunt, the eye behind all things social media for Dwell, liked at that show.
A New Gallery That Feels Like (a Very Fancy) Home
One of the newest additions to New York’s design scene is Quarters, a shop run by lighting designers In Common With. It’s styled as a home and offers a thoughtful mix of furniture, lighting (of course), and other objects. It’s in a corridor between Tribeca and Chinatown that has, in the matter of just a couple of years, turned into a bustling hub of art and design galleries.
The Lamp Show
I love The Lamp Show. Cafe and design bookstore Head Hi’s annual open call for creative lighting often stretches the idea of what a “lamp” can be, and the designs that made the cut this year delivered. My favorite was a shaggy lamp by Studio Atomic that typifies the hairy lighting trend going on right now.
The Design Fair New York Needed
The Brussels design fair Collectable opened its inaugural New York edition in September, and it was a much-needed infusion of new energy into the city’s design calendar. The fair dedicated to one-off and small edition design work had a varied group of exhibitors and many emerging designers to discover. Here’s everything Suzanne LaGasa, Dwell’s creative director, loved at the show. I’m excited to see what’s in store next year.
A Credenza and a Residency at Colony
New York design gallery Colony always has an exciting rotation of work at their still new-ish Tribeca space. Back in October, this credenza by Alara Alkan Studio in particular caught my eye, with its beautifully made textured door details. Alkan participated in the 2024 edition of Colony’s residency program, which helps emerging designers cultivate the practical side of running their studios—from developing collections and exhibiting to sales and marketing.
Contemplative Textiles at Superhouse
Another big discovery of the year was Maris Van Vlack, a young textile artist who had a solo show at Superhouse this fall. She layers different types of yarn, tighter and looser knots, and unusual materials into her weavings that give the pieces a sense of built-up history or obscured stories.
Southern Design at the Atlanta Art Fair
Our November/December 2024 issue focused on how regional design approaches endure despite the homogenizing force that Instagram aesthetics often exerts on local scenes. At the inaugural Atlanta Art Fair I had the chance to ask a panel of experts—including Tony Purvis, associate director of interior design at SCAD, and designers Michel Smith Boyd and Monet Masters—what distinguishes the South these days. As a New Yorker, I was happy to have their expertise. The designers also joked that their role often expands from designing interiors to being everything from art advisor to therapist for their clients in a way that might be specific to the region.
Objects: USA 2024
If you’re looking for a more distinctive piece of office seating than the typical task chair, Knoll recently re-released a 1973 design by Andrew Morrison and Bruce Hannah that has a lot of visual pop. As soon as they announced that they were bringing it back, the Dwell team was posting heart-eye emojis on Slack in response to the contemporary colorways.
Dwell Open House: Los Angeles
In October, Dwell gave 300 readers the opportunity to tour three very cool, very different homes on the east side of Los Angeles in person. I was lucky enough to hang out at Chet Callahan’s place all day and meet with many of them. The vibe was amazing, and I can’t wait for future editions.
Table Lamps From Maine at Design Miami
At Design Miami, Dobrinka Salzman Gallery showed a solo presentation of lighting by Maine designer Christopher Baker. His metal, wood, and fabric constructions stopped me in my tracks. The table lamps draped in yarn in particular had a ton of personality (see the hairy lighting trend mentioned above).
Chain Mail at Alcova Miami
I’ve been a fan of Dwell 24 alum Maika Palazuelos, who calls her Mexico City studio Panorammma, for a long time, and it has been great to see the directions she had taken her work since we first featured her. It was a highlight of the second Miami edition of the Milan design fair Alcova. Like the first, the show overall was a mixed bag of exciting and not-so-exciting work. Dwell contributor Alana Hope Levinson sifted through it all for us and found a few serious gems.
“Morocco” in Miami
Miami Art Week has always featured an impossibly long list of competing spectacles, but in recent years it seems like many of the events put on by galleries, institutions, and other entities in the art business have been replaced by “experiential activations” organized by big companies that could take place in pretty much any context. One exception was a pop-up by Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj. With his own backing from Capital One and the Cultivist, he decked out a storefront on the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall in Miami Beach with an eye-popping riff on Moroccan decor. It played host to a tea salon, a restaurant by Rose Previte, and performances—from traditional Moroccan gnawa to celebrity DJ sets. And it was actually…fun.
Local Lighting at TIWA Select
I’ll close out the year on a moody December day at Alex Tieghi-Walker’s Manhattan design gallery TIWA Select and a solo show by lighting designer James Cherry. Based in Los Angeles, the designer forms his lighting by creating armatures from materials found wherever he happens to be—sticks in the woods, cast-off metal pieces in Brooklyn, etc. He then wraps them in fabric and coats the fabric with layers of resin until he has just the right level of translucency. Glowing at dusk at the end of one of the shortest days of the year, they were a poetic way to say goodbye to 2024.
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