Paris has Maison&Objet. Milan has Salone del Mobile. New York’s Design Week, by contrast, has always been a somewhat complicated entity—with NYCxDesign, ICFF, WantedDesignand a host of side events making up a dizzying array of offerings. This year’s edition (May 12 to 20) promises to be a watershed moment, as two big partnerships make their debut and one newcomer enters the scene. The question for Big Apple design fanatics will likely be: Will these developments make Design Week simpler, or more complicated?
Let’s start with the big moves. In January of last year, NYCxDesign, long run by the city of New York, announced that it would hand over operations to Sandow, the media organization that runs Interior Design and Material ConneXion (among other design-centric platforms). The reason? Growth. The New York Economic Development Corporation (the agency formerly tasked with running the show) attributed the choice to a need to take the festival outside of city operations in order to expand.
At the time, the news ruffled some feathers in the industry (several members of the festival’s steering committee stepped down in the aftermath). So far, however, Sandow seems to be approaching the festival with a light touch. Nothing major has been cut, and in fact there have been additions, including a biannual magazine to debut in May aptly titled NYCxDesign.
“Sandow has a lot of enthusiasm for what we’re doing, and that opens a lot of doors that we didn’t have open to us with the city,” says Edward Hogikyan, the vice president and executive director of NYCxDesign. (Hogikyan previously worked on the festival when it was run by the city, but left to work with Sandow last summer.)
For the 2020 edition, NYCxDesign is trying to take a wider view of the city, with more than 400 activations across all five boroughs (no, really—even Staten Island). “There is a lot going on in the outer boroughs, and there isn’t the same awareness as there is with things that are happening in Manhattan or Brooklyn,” says Hogikyan. “Part of our agreement with the city is that we will continue to promote New York City in its totality, so we see this as a great way to put a spotlight on these areas that are just starting to boom in terms of design.”
Sandow and NYCxDesign won’t be the only new partnership to debut this spring. Also joining forces are old-guard trade show ICFF and independent-minded festival WantedDesign. Under a deal that the two fairs inked last fall, both will exhibit at Javits Convention Center this spring, with Wanted, which previously exhibited at the Terminal Stores in Chelsea for nine years, creating something akin to their own pavilion on the ICFF floor.