Molteni Flagship Store: An Italian villa in New York

In recent years offices have copied the spontaneity of the domestic environment, making it unlikely that showrooms would remain endlessly immune from interventions undermining the traditional retail space. Presenting a piece of furniture outside its usual setting is no longer enough. What’s needed is interior design that intensifies desire, placing it within the suggestion of a living space that could be imitated. Forty years after 1968, it finally seems true to say that the private is public. Stripped of its political connotations, the slogan seems the one best fitted to describe this immersive approach. Of course, it can take different forms. Here, it is a classic Italian villa – the new Molteni flagship store in New York, the largest they have ever opened. Designed by Vincent Van Duysen and with a surface area of 1,200 square metres, it brings together for the first time under one roof the group’s three brands – Molteni&C, Dada and UniFor – illustrating their versatility in playful, sophisticated harmony.

Naturally, there’s a focus on the brand’s style legacy. But the narrative of an Italian ecosystem also makes use of other contributions from the country – travertine flooring and the walnut wood used for the store’s most imposing architectural feature, the staircase connecting the two floors. The materials and the workers to install them were both brought over from Italy.

The store is a showcase of excellence for the American market, the brand’s largest overseas, according to Giulia Molteni, head of the marketing division. As she says, it’s one “which has seen the emergence of huge interest in residential design in the last ten years”. But the format opened at 160 Madison Avenue, to be replicated eventually in other select cities, has another side – a synergy with the art world. What would an Italian villa be if – aside from the classic design – there were no works of art on the walls? The concept, previewed with The Collector’s House at the 2018 Rho Fair stand, was supervised by the art curator Caroline Corbetta. In agreement with the brand, she chose a range of young artists, in line with the group’s philanthropic spirit. Among the works currently in the store are monochrome sculptures by Santo Tolone and pop hieroglyphs by Stephen Felton.

As with the Rho Fair stand, this juxtaposition between interior design and contemporary arts produces a fresh, dynamic lifestyle image. It avoids the museum atmosphere that bringing in names with an established place in art history might have created. As Caroline says, “works by young artists interact better with the Molteni furnishings, developing a special aesthetic friction and enhancing both”.

Together with the other elements – particularly the size of the building, which has four windows onto the street – this contribution gives the store the feel of an Italian palazzo, rather than a modern interpretation of a villa inhabited by an elegant collector with an interest in the latest trends. Van Duysen has called it an “Italian palazzo in New York”. It is clean and pared-down like all his designs, with invisible technology incorporated, but it is rich in detail for all that. You can take the art home too, because unlike at the Salone, the works on show are for sale – transforming the store into an art and design gallery, a leading address in the NoMad Design District. Inside there’s a superstar piece that has not been seen for a while, a reissue paying tribute to the Big Apple – Gio Ponti’s D.859.1 table, designed in the 1950s for the auditorium annex in the Time&Life building.