What’s Happening: Exhibit Columbus, a citywide festival launched by the Landmark Columbus Foundation, seeks to build connections between the Ohio capital’s Modernist past and all-embracing future.

The Download: With its extraordinary assortment of architectural landmarks—including major works by Eero and Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, César Pelli, and dozens more—Columbus would be more than justified in establishing itself as an urban museum of Modernist history. For the last three years, though, the Landmark Columbus Foundation program Exhibit Columbus has pushed the city into the future, rethinking histories and activating the old buildings with up-and-coming designers. This year’s iteration, “Public by Design,” tackles contemporary phenomena of alienation and inequity in a citywide festival of vibrant connection-making.

Thirteen installations seek to foreground local perspectives for a global audience. Each of the four J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize winners partnered with a city agency for their public project. These included Harlem-based Studio Zewde’s collaboration with the parks and recreation department, “Echoes of the Hill,” which recontextualizes Michael Van Valkenburgh’s landscape design as a community gathering space. And a team of local high school designers made a place for themselves on the main thoroughfare of Washington Street, working with independent bookstore Viewpoint Books to create “Machi,” a vibrant series of hangout zones from some 1,000 linear feet of steel tubing.

Seven University Design Fellows worked with local designers and fabricators to show work in dialogue with the city’s architecture. Deborah Garcia, for example, teamed up with local producers Propellor to make “Responder,” a throne-cum-loudspeaker that broadcasts field recordings Garcia made in and of Pei’s Cleo Rogers Memorial Library. (Nearby, prize winner Tatiana Bilbao Estudio has installed “Designed by the Public,” a library of equipment offered in the hope of people building their own work.) Garcia assembled the charred wood frame and electronics herself, with the help of Columbus volunteers and her own two sisters. Design doesn’t get better-connected than that.

In their Own Words: “We wanted to demonstrate the basic idea that the best work is built with a broad belief in the collective power of community work and engagement,” says Bryony Roberts, one of the curatorial partners.

Surface Says: Exhibit Columbus continues to demonstrate the potential of contemporary exhibitions. The bloated international architecture-and-design-fair circuit should take note.

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As gala season returns this fall, so too does the Architectural League of New York’s annual Beaux Arts Ball. This year, architects, designers, and friends of the League will head to Building 269 at Brooklyn Navy Yard on Sept. 29 for the 33rd annual edition of the gala since it was revived in 1990. This year’s theme, Sea Change, invites attendees to meditate on the interdependence between the built environment and planetary ecosystems with an installation by CO Adaptive.

Inspired by Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s casual glamour, Wes Gordon headed downtown from the Plaza Hotel—the fashion house’s runway go-to until now—and rung in his fifth year helming Carolina Herrera at the Whitney Museum, where he swore off dress codes and delineations between daytime and evening dressing in the name of a 61-look collection inspired by what his girlfriends would want to wear.

Describe the collection in three words: Chic, feminine, modern.

Which look is your favorite? I loved the black-and-white toile. I love looks that blur the line between day and evening: taking something fabulous floor length and dramatically cutting it in cotton. I love turning on its head the idea of dressy or casual.

What was the inspiration? I loved what Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy did with simple ingredients: a pencil skirt, a pair of slingbacks, and a cotton shirt put together in a way that feels fabulous, feminine, and cool. I tried to capture that ease. Herrera is about making sure everything we create has an exclamation point. We don’t make boring clothes. Women don’t come to us for pieces to blend in. She comes to us to have fun and feel like her most beautiful self. Whether it’s a color, a print, embroidery, a big sleeve, it all has to have that spark.

It’s not uncommon for New York designers to switch to showing in Paris, or stop showing at all. What keeps you in New York? This is the greatest city in the world. We’re happy to be here. This house was founded here in 1981. I couldn’t think of a cooler place to show twice a year. We played with showing in Rio for a resort collection, and we’ll play with that idea in the future. Our main runway seasons will always be in New York.

Name: The Golden Swan

Location: West Village, New York

Designer: BWArchitects

On Offer: Landing in the two-story West Village townhouse that once was home to the infamous Spotted Pig, the Golden Swan is the latest venture from Neighborhood Projects founder Matthew Abramcyk, known for beloved local boîtes Smith & Mills, Tiny’s & the Bar Upstairs, and the Beatrice Inn. He gutted the gastropub to its bones and brought in chef Doug Brixton, who trained under Daniel Boulud before cooking up Tribeca’s Michelin-starred Bâtard. The pair partnered with BWArchitects on the space, transforming it into a sumptuous, sun-filled destination for a New York take on French-Mediterranean cuisine.

Our weekly scoop on industry players moving onwards and upwards.

Though she founded Fondazione Prada alongside Patrizio Bertelli three decades ago, Miuccia Prada recently formalized her role as the institution’s director and established a steering committee. It includes Giuliana Bruno, a professor of visual and environmental studies at Harvard University; Giancarlo Comi, a neurology professor at the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan; artist and activist Theaster Gates; film director Alejandro González Iñárritu; and archaeologist and art historian Salvatore Settis.

In other museum news, Belinda Tate has been named director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, a position she’ll begin in November. She currently serves as executive director of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan. Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles is receiving a new executive director in Rody N. López after Suzanne Isken retired this month. Magazzino Italian Art, which recently celebrated the opening of the Robert Olnick Pavilion, announced the 2023–2024 scholar-in-residence position has been awarded to Dr. Margaret Scarborough.

Moschino will soon announce a successor to creative director Jeremy Scott, who stepped down this past March after a decade. Massimo Ferretti, executive chairman at Aeffe, which owns the label, said the hire will be made in the next few weeks. Tiffany & Co. appointed Hector Muelas as chief brand creative officer after holding several creative roles at parent company LVMH, as well as Rimowa, Apple, and Donna Karan. At Tom Ford, Paolo Cigognini was named SVP of global communications with Rebecca Mason being appointed SVP of global brand image. Joyce Green will become managing director of Chanel France while Rebekah McCabe will succeed Green as general manager of fashion for the U.S. market.

Surreality escapes the subconscious and hits the floor in the latest rug collection by CC-Tapis. Designed by the boundary-pushing studio Yabu Pushelberg, the Memento range artfully translates our weird world into hand-knotted 100 percent Himalayan wool. Three of them—Axo, Iso, and Ortho—offer depictions of blocky architecture, part adobe abodes and part impossible Escher-like structures, all in subtle variations of neutral taupe and creams.

A fourth, Drift, sets them floating and tumbling across landscapes worthy of Dalí. The remaining trio of Laneway, Echo, and Dome explore forms which undulate in more saturated tones of blue and brown, looming on horizons and casting shadows across their grounds. Crafted by Tibetan artisans in the brand’s Nepalese atelier, with blends of dyed and undyed wool achieving a soft finish with deep visual detail, each rug is conceived with the signature, imaginative flair that is worthy of hanging on walls as well.

Last week, the grantmaking organization asked its considerable network to don their most “iconic” looks in the name of philanthropy on the occasion of its lamé and neon-tinged benefit gala. Guests toasted espresso martinis in honor of previous years’ grantees Lynn Hershman Leeson, Raven Chacon, and Ja’Tovia Gary. Entertainment, in the form of a performance by Yaya Bey, aerial acrobatics by Kitty’s Koalition artists, go-go dancers, and a DJ set by April Hunt, punctuated the evening.

When was it? Sept. 21

Where was it? The Paradise Club, New York

Who was there? Lorraine O’Grady, Kimberly Drew, JiaJia Fei, Christine Kuan, Hannah Traore, Thebe Magugu.

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Audo Copenhagen is born of a collaborative spirit. Developed from uniting Menu, The Audo, and by Lassen, Audo Copenhagen reflects a century of Danish design tradition and a modern, global outlook that continually expands and evolves. The brand’s furniture, lighting, and accessories are shaped by purposeful details, high-quality materials, and human needs, going hand-in-hand with a pursuit to create strong, long-lasting connections.

Surface Says: Audo has cultivated a stable of covetable must-haves from a hand-picked range of celebrated designers, from the archival—Ib Kofod-Larsen, Mogens Lassen—to contemporary stars like Norm Architects and Colin King.

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