Starting this week, thousands of fans of midcentury modernism will descend on Palm Springs, Calif., for neighborhood architecture viewing, intimate home tours, art shows and film premieres as part of the town’s popular Modernism Week (which is actually 10 days). But design tourism is a year-round pleasure, and aficionados can shop for, learn about and otherwise appreciate their favorite items and categories around the world. Here are some highlights from the design world to visit in coming months.
Cincinnati
20th Century Cincinnati Vintage Modern Expo
More than 70 dealers will take over 40,000 square feet at the Sharonville Convention Center outside Cincinnati on Feb. 20 through 22 for a weekend of “juicy vintage modern goodness,” according to Jenni Button, the event’s co-producer and creative director.
This family- and women-owned extravaganza turns 31 this year, making it one of the oldest midcentury events in the country. Prices range from bargain-level to exorbitant. Unlike many design shows, this one is family friendly: Children under 18 get in free.
Most of the vendors this year are from the industrial Midwest, with an emphasis on Ohio. Sweet Modern from Akron, the show’s sponsor, will be selling restored midcentury décor and furniture. Cleveland Modern will be on hand with midcentury lighting. The South will be in the house too, with vintage handbags from Kitschy Kloset in Jasper, Ala. and Art Deco clocks from Deco-rations in Chantilly, Va.
Cincinnati Modern, a real estate agency, will even help you find a local midcentury modern home.
The Friday night Mid Mod Mixer comes with early access to the vendor area plus food and drinks — the best option for serious collectors hunting for substantial pieces. For those who want a more extravagant weekend experience, the $2,400 Ultra Luxe package includes a two-night stay at 21C, a boutique hotel and contemporary art museum in downtown Cincinnati.
Milan
Salone Internazionale del Mobile
This month, Italy’s capital of fashion and design is busy hosting the Olympics. But every April, designers, architects, buyers and regular folks gather for Milan Design Week, which runs from April 21 through 26 this year. One of the signature events is the Salone del Mobile, or furniture fair, which began in 1961 as a way to promote Italian exports of furniture and accessories. One regular attendee has described it as “a dense, sprawling, occasionally overwhelming cultural phenomenon.”
This year the fair returns to Milan’s vast Fiera Milano exhibition halls and additional locations across the city. Most days are for industry, but on April 25 and 26, doors will be open to the public. The fair covers almost every base when it comes to home living, from furniture to textiles and décor, for uses indoors and out. Home Depot it isn’t: Organizers call it a “laboratory of experimentation and cross-pollination.”
The event overlaps with EuroCucina, a biennial exhibition “dedicated to the kitchen universe,” and the International Bathroom Exhibition, where some 200 exhibitors will show off everything from shower cubicles to taps to bathtubs.
While in Milan, you might also check out Alcova, a festival of contemporary design, architecture and technology best known for turning raw and abandoned urban spaces into design hubs. This year’s event takes place at a former military hospital and at Villa Pestarini, the only villa designed by the Italian Neo-Rationalist architect Franco Albini.
New York
TEFAF New York
You don’t have to know a thing about art or design to enjoy this annual fair run by the European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF), a Dutch group best known for its annual design fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
TEFAF New York’s home is the elegant and historic Park Avenue Armory on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The event, held this year from May 15 through 19, focuses primarily on modern and contemporary art, but also spotlights antiquities, furniture and jewelry design for both the casual window shopper and the moneyed connoisseur.
Expensive is a relative term, but like the Milan event, this is not an affordable art fair. Still, attendees should feel no obligation to spend a dime, said Leanne Jagtiani, the director of TEFAF New York.
“The dealers are accessible and love to talk about what they have on view,” she said. “Walking around, it’s like going to a museum and having a docent answer all your questions.”
Besides art, the fair features several days of event programming, including panel discussions to be announced. Ms. Jagtiani suggested taking a break from browsing with a bite and a glass of champagne at the on-site oyster bar, before heading to the balcony for something priceless: a selfie overlooking the Armory’s massive drill hall.
Copenhagen
3daysofdesign
Since it started in 2013, this summer festival has grown into one of Scandinavia’s pre-eminent design gatherings, a city-devouring celebration of furniture, décor and lighting.
Last year, more than 460 emerging and established brands exhibited at the festival, and over 60,000 visitors took in hundreds of events at showrooms, studios, galleries and other venues, indoors and out, in design districts across Copenhagen. This year it will be held from June 10 through 12; the full program will be announced in May.
This year’s theme is “Make This Moment Matter,” which asks designers and design fans to consider “choosing substance over superficialities, timeless vs. temporary,” as Signe Byrdal Terenziani, the event’s chief executive and managing director, put it in press materials. Be sure to download the 3daysofdesign app that includes an interactive map of the city and every event. The best part? The festival is open to the public and all events are free.
While in Copenhagen, check out the Danish Architecture Center on the waterfront in the city’s Cultural District, or the Design Museum Denmark, which this summer will feature exhibitions of modern Japanese posters and intricately embroidered works by the artist Nikoline Liv Andersen.
Lancaster, Ohio
Bottoms Up: A Midcentury Barware Show
Ohio has a long history of glassware design, including from the legacy brands Anchor Hocking and Libbey, but also long-gone companies like the prolific Federal Glass, whose colorful tumblers now sell for hundreds of dollars.
That storied heritage is what drives this annual weekend, held this year from June 18 through 21, from Gay Fad Studios, a revived midcentury glassware company run by the husbands and co-owners Jason and David Annecy. Fran Taylor founded the company in 1939, and was among the earliest (and the very few women) to own and operate an American glass-decorating studio during the midcentury era. (She named it to mean “happy trend,” not homosexual vogue.) The Annecys resurrected the brand in 2022, 60 years after Gay Fad closed its original glassware facilities in Lancaster, which is about 35 minutes by car from Columbus.
Unlike other comprehensive design shows, this one zeros in on a specific angle: midcentury cocktail culture, including tumblers, shakers, highball glasses and bar carts. Much of the event takes place across Lancaster’s downtown, as it did last year, when attendance neared 18,000.
This year, Bottoms Up overlaps with the Columbus Pride festival, featuring one of the biggest L.G.B.T.Q. parades in the country. Best to get tickets early for the campy Bottoms Up drag show, which David Annecy describes as what would happen “if the Supremes showed up and did a lounge act.”
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