Need to Know

Dispatch from the Venice Architecture Biennale, Pinch Opens an NYC Showroom, and More News

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A modular, biotechnical Venice Architecture Biennale presentation courtesy of USM Modular Furniture, in collaboration with Virginia Tech Honors College, the Barcelona-based architecture firm Cloud 9 directed by Dr. Enric Ruiz-Geli, and the US design practice Joba Studio directed by Kevin Jones.Photo: Marco Galloway

From significant business changes to noteworthy product launches, there’s always something new happening in the world of design. In this biweekly roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know.

Design happenings

Dispatch from the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

Last weekend, all eyes were on Venice as the Biennale got underway (through November 23), and the 19th edition of the architecture component is off to a strong start. Illuminating Venice’s own rich history is Fortuny + Cahan, for example, through a collaboration between the storied fabric house and Paris-based designer Chahan Minassian. At the Fortuny Palazzina, Minassian hatched riveting interiors, like the dining room and piano corner, starring lush Fortuny textiles. Meanwhile, over at Lo Studio, French-Tunisian designer and creative consultant Mehdi Dakhli curated “Intrecciata Venezia,” packed with contemporary artworks by Joël Andrianomearisoa, Seyni Awa Camara, Clément Gloaguen, Alexandre Gourçon, Abdoulaye Konaté, and Ibrahim Mahama that investigate Venice from a North African perspective.

In the US pavilion, “Objects of Belonging,” a meditation on the porch as a cultural and social fixture, is the handiwork of Stephen Burks Man Made. Burks and partner Malika Leiper put the focus on everyday objects like brooms, rocking chairs, and quilts, the latter of which were created by the famed quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, with Dedar-supplied fabrics. Swiss furniture brand USM partnered with Virginia Tech Honors College (before his vital role in developing the school’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies in the 1960s, Swiss architect Olivio Ferrari worked with Fritz Haller, co-designer of the USM Haller system) on “Unearthed / Second Nature / Pollination.” The two-part collateral installation to the Biennale’s Giardini della Marinaressa and Palazzo Bembo is curated by Cloud 9 and designed by Blacksburg, Virginia’s Joba Studio. It brings together 11 projects from 142 students and 12 faculty members that probe connections between sustainability, environmental justice, and design.

AD PRO Hears…

…both AD and Apparatus are supporters of the Ali Forney Center for LGBT Youth. At the annual A Place at the Table Gala last week, the furniture and lighting purveyor was awarded the Community Partner Award for its constant mentorship and fundraising efforts. Gabriel Hendifar, the studio’s artistic director, accepted the award, poignantly noting that “design doesn’t exist in a vacuum.”

Openings

The Apartment marks Pinch’s move stateside

A series of Pinch furniture in The Apartment.

Photo: William Jess Laird

When Pinch celebrated its 20th anniversary with a successful New York pop-up at the Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery last year, founders Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon began contemplating a possible permanent space in the city. It was kismet, then, when friend and collaborator Ashley Hildreth asked the London-based couple to go in on a petite apartment in a Greenwich Village brownstone with her. Since January, Pinch and Bannon have been quietly transforming the intimate, residential space into an apt showcase for their furniture and lighting, welcoming clients in for meetings and informal meals along the way. Past the building’s arched doors and stained-glass roof light, glossy white flooring leads to The Apartment, where a marble fireplace, 19th-century plaster cornicing, and sliding timber doors backdrop a capsule collection of Pinch designs, including eye-catching shelves of scaled miniatures.

Exhibitions

“Knit and Weave” takes over an Austrian castle

Since 2014, design curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein and her family have called Schloss Hollenegg, a regal 12th-century castle about an hour south of Graz, home. Until June 1, the medieval Austrian estate will be open to the public for “Knit and Weave,” wherein 30 emerging designers have juxtaposed the building’s historical fabrics with contemporary works highlighting color and texture. Curated by Johanna Pichlbauer, the group show’s featured works explore sustainability, identity, innovation, and heritage. Standouts include Vienna designer Theresa Hattinger’s large-scale outdoor textiles, as well as Helsinki-based Aoi Yoshizawa’s loom installation that magnifies ancient weaving techniques.

Craft in America presents teapots as works of art

Lindsey Ketterer Gates, Teapot, 2003.

Photo: Tony Cunha

Ardent collectors Gloria and Sonny Kamm have been amassing teapots—and commissioning artists to dream up their own fantastical versions—for years, culminating in what is now considered the world’s largest collection. Last week, Los Angeles gallery Craft in America unveiled “Tea for Two” (on view through August 30), a curated glimpse into the Kamm Teapot Foundation’s impressive 17,000-piece trove. Instead of focusing on the utilitarian aspects of serving tea, the creations on display center on imagination. Consider Peter Shire’s Sunburst Accordion, which takes cues from the Memphis movement, or Marilyn da Silva’s An Unlikely Pair, a union of dazzling stripes and polka dots rendered in gold-plated copper and colored pencil. Teapot, by Lindsay Ketterer Gates, even melds stainless-steel mesh with an unlikely array of pistachio shells.

AD PRO Hears…

…last week, “Chris Gustin: Ascension” opened at Donzella Project Space in New York (through June 7). Gustin, whose ceramics career spans five decades, is presenting the first solo show of his Spirit series, an assemblage of cumulus clouds standing five-feet tall.

Project spotlight

All aboard! Dimorestudio revives Italy’s Orient Express train

In 1883, Belgian engineer and entrepreneur Georges Nagelmackers launched the Orient Express in Europe, setting a new precedent in luxury rail travel. Now, the iconic train has returned to Italy as La Dolce Vita Orient Express, zipping through Venice, Tuscany, Portofino, Rome, and Sicily, with chic interiors from Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran, founders of Milan-based Dimorestudio. Inspired by Italian legends—Cini Boeri, Agostino Bonalumi, and Giuseppe Capogrossi among them—the AD100 duo mixed swaths of walnut, polished brass, and jewel-toned velvet with boldly patterned textiles and bespoke furniture. Light fixtures exhibit a distinctive sheen, evocative of the 1960s and ’70s golden age.

Product

Dornbracht becomes even more bespoke

The Tara Handles in Leather Verdite.

Courtesy of Dornbracht

In celebration of its 75th anniversary, luxury fittings brand Dornbracht has launched Dornbracht Atelier, a bespoke offering of manufactured showers, faucets, and sink fittings. The Atelier cracks open a heady spectrum of possibilities for creatives and clients who want top-quality craftsmanship matched to their particular vision. The Atelier’s offered finishes span whichever color or texture suits the project—not even leather-wrapped or checkerboard patterned options are out of reach. Engravings, logos, and other expressive accents are optional embellishments too, making a case for bathroom couture.