Two things one is bound to see at Design Miami: a lot of old stuff, and a lot of new stuff. In any given year, part of what makes the December interiors-and-furniture fair in South Florida, good or bad, is the balance between them—or the ways in which past and future commingle.
The Friedman Benda booth at Design Miami, with the Robo Lamp pictured at left. Photo © Stephane Aboudaram | We Are Content(s), courtesy Friedman Benda
By that measure, the 2024 installment has a lot going for it. In the main tent, at the booth for Manhattan gallery Friedman Benda, Milan- and Rotterdam-based design duo Formafantasma debuted its Robo Lamp, the first in a projected series of objects based on what co-founder Simone Farresin describes “an exploration of the idea archetypes.” The archetype in this instance is immediately recognizable: Richard Sapper’s 1972 Tizio lamp, blown up in size to nearly 6 feet in height and with its slender metal arms replaced by sturdy, handsome cherry wood. Only a few steps away, in the stall for Objective Gallery, Los Angeles–based Sam Klemick managed a not dissimilar trick with her lustrous Big Wooden Bell Chair, an original and technically daring work that nonetheless contains strong echoes of Sergio Rodrigues’ celebrated Mole lounge chair from 1961.
Installation view of Big Wooden Bell Chair by Sam Klemich at the Objective Gallery booth. Photo by Luis Corzo, courtesy Objective Gallery
Across town, the second Miami iteration of Milan’s celebrated Alcova design fair took place in a site as historic as anything on either side of Biscayne Bay: the 1908 Miami River Inn, a series of four modest gabled houses that curators Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima stocked with work from up-and-coming design practices from around the world. There, the offerings also seemed to look both backwards and forwards—notably Kevin Quale’s very tongue-in-cheek ceramic pieces arranged into a Dutch still life with a very contemporary touch. “It’s like the remains of a gay afterparty,” said Quale, pointing to the wine corks and jockstraps scattered around his delicate, highly suggestive objets d’art that riff off 17th-century Delftware.
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Works by participants including Kevin Quale (1) and Laura Casañas Maya (2) were shown at the historic Miami River Inn during the second edition of Alcova Miami. Photos by Piergiorgio Sorgetti, courtesy Alcova
Anyone looking for new architecture around Miami, or for any actual architects, might have come away a little frustrated. Save for an evening promotional event for OMA’s proposed 15-acre underwater ReefLine park—which appeared as a miniature mockup on Miami Beach, its star-like concrete forms fabricated by a team from the University of New Hampshire—new project debuts were not much in evidence. One architect who did make an appearance was Suchi Reddy, who joined a Lexus-sponsored panel on design technology at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the Miami Design District. Though an avid user of AI in much of her work, Reddy made the surprisingly old-fashioned admission that she has never tried ChatGPT (and didn’t seem very eager to do so). “It’s not that I have anything against it,” she told the audience. “But we’re feeding systems that like all our biases. I don’t know if we’re feeding it all our wisdom.”
On view at ICA Miami was Liminal Cycles, a multi-sensory installation created by Lexus in collaboration with Bratislava-based studio Crafting Plastics! Photo by Steve Benisty, courtesy Lexus
On the whole, if the conversation around town seemed remarkably elevated this year—as well as sales, which were reportedly healthy even with a modest, deliberate reduction in exhibitors at the main tent—it would seem no small credit to the influence of new Design Miami curatorial director Glenn Adamson. His theme for the main fair, “Blue Sky,” sought to open up the profession to new possibilities in the face of a very charged cultural moment: “It’s about optimism in the face of challenge, which is in our DNA at Design Miami,” Adamson said, during remarks on opening day. “And of course, in this city, there’s usually a literal blue sky.”
That much was true: the week was mostly cloudless, though rather brisk, with attendees at a rooftop Salone del Mobile party bundling up against the chill.
Even with so many new things a-brewing in Miami, design’s past was never far behind. At the opening of Italian lighting brand Artemide’s new headquarters in the Design District, the first thing visitors encountered was very familiar indeed: the original, non-wood Tizio lamp. As the space’s designer, Carolina Gismondi de Bevilacqua, put it, “It’s our baby.”
