A Final List of NYC Design Week Highlights from Foscarini, Luceplan, and More

In addition to our favorite offerings from ICFF, cataloged here and here, we visited what seemed like an endless series of openings at showrooms around New York City this week.

Among the objects on view, highlights included the Fresnel lens chandeliers at Luceplan by Francisco Gomez Paz and Paolo Rizzatto…

…as well as the egg-shaped bathtub by Marcel Wanders at Bisazza, which reclined luxuriously somewhere between amazing and totally ridiculous.

A world away aesthetically, but occupying a similar position between laughable and awesome, the artisanal axes by Peter Buchanan-Smith’s Best Made Co. at the Herman Miller pop up elicited more than a few groans for pandering to the bourgeois lumberjack—but nevertheless, their craftsmanship is impressive.

The Foscarini showroom featured a typically strong series of lighting designs. A trio of “Aplomb” concrete lamps by Paolo Lucidi and Luca Pevere stood out for their tough material made to look impossibly soft and almost light absorbing.

The entire Foscarini installation revolved around aqua version of Vicente Garcia Jimenez’s “Le Soleil” lamp, with light leaking out through the well-calibrated gaps in its stacked polycarbonate bands.

“I was inspired by the lighting at the dentist’s office,” said the designer at the opening reception, offering little more to explain how his source informed the final design. He also collaborated with Massimo Gardone to produce a video trailer for the entire collection, which played on a scattering of monitors in the back of the black-painted showroom. Though more than a little heavy on drama, it’s a fun introduction to the work.