By Johnson 
As 2024 winds down, I decided to take stock of the spaces, places, and objects I saw that reminded us that—amid all of the acrimonious ugliness that filled our various feeds this year—people are making cool things out there. This is an incomplete list of inspiring design that made an appearance in 2024.
John Cameron Mitchell’s “Queer Art Church”
The polymath writer, director, performer behind Hedwig, and other culture-defining work, renovated a truly strange house in New Orleans. The former regional HQ of the Order Templi Orientis (the esoteric society once helmed by Alister Crowley), the home’s defining feature is a large ballroom, and Cameron Mitchell uses the space as a venue for performances, drawing classes, and all kinds of events. Ahead of our feature, I was lucky enough to attend one, and check out the outsized Art Nouveau addition designed by Mitchell Kulkin and Justin Barton with Studio West Design & Architecture and Arch Builders.
Alessandro Mendini at the Triennale
The vogue for all things Memphis has certainly waned, but a career-spanning Mendini retrospective in Milan showed a titan of the movement enduring beyond any trend. Titled “Io Sono un Drago” after a self-portrait with the text “Io Non Sono un Architectto, Sono un Drago” (I am not an architect, I am a dragon) covered everything from his graphic and industrial design for all kinds of brands to his years at Domus and early artwork.
Ceramic and Glass at Alcova
What replaced the Memphis trend? Surrealism. As in art and fashion, design got weird in 2024 with uncanny objects appearing everywhere. That included at the Alcova fair in Milan back in April. Two highlights in the show were a set of ceramic sconces by Seoul studio WKND Lab and glassware by Poland’s Szklo Studio at a presentation by design gallery Adorno.
An Elegantly Industrial Kitchen at Salone del Mobile
Danish kitchen artists VIPP never disappoint when they unveil new material and configurations for their custom work, and their all-aluminum island at Milan’s sprawling Salone del Mobile didn’t disappoint. For more of what we loved, check out everything my colleague Duncan Nielsen saw (and liked) at the fair this year in his report from this year’s Salone del Mobile.
A Chair Collab at Dimore Studio
French fashion brand Yves Salomon and furniture maker Chapo Creation teamed up to make a series of chairs on view at Milan’s Dimore Studio. Mixing wood with beautiful joinery and textiles with bright patterns and a deep texture, the pairing worked out extremely well. You can see everything Julia Stevens, Dwell’s former style editor liked around Milan during Salone del Mobile in her dispatch. (We miss you, Julia!)
Rare Forms
From Milan to New York, the online shop Rarify, specializing in, well, rare vintage furniture, had a presentation of enviable objects at ICFF last spring. Check out everything else Ian Zunt, the eye behind all things social media for Dwell, liked at that show.
A New Gallery That Feels Like (a Very Fancy) Home
One of the newest additions to New York’s design scene is Quarters, a gallery from lighting designers In Common With styled as a home. It’s in a corridor between TriBeca and Chinatown that has, in the matter of just a couple of years, turned into a bustling hub of art and design galleries.
The Lamp Show
I love The Lamp Show. Cafe and design bookstore Head Hi’s annual open call for creative lighting often stretches the idea of what a “lamp” can be, and the designs that made the cut this year delivered. My favorite was a shaggy lamp by Studio Atomic that typifies the hairy lighting trend going on right now.
The Design Fair New York Deserves
The Brussels design fair Collectable opened its inaugural New York edition in September, and it was a much-needed addition to the city’s design calendar. The fair dedicated to one-off and small edition design work had a varied group of exhibitors and many emerging designers to discover. Here’s everything Suzanne LaGassa, Dwell’s creative director, loved at the show. I’m excited to see what’s in store next year.
A Credenza and a Residency at Colony
New York design gallery Colony always has an exciting rotation of work at their still new-ish Tribeca space. Back in October, this credenza by Alara Alkan Studio in particular caught my eye, with its beautifully made textured door details. Alkan participated in the 2024 edition of Colony’s residency program, which helps emerging designers with the practical side of running their studios—from developing collections and exhibiting to sales and marketing.
Contemplative Textiles at Superhouse
Another big discovery of the year was Maris Van Vlack, a young textile artist who had a solo show at Superhouse this fall. The work is made from typical weaving techniques, but she layers in different types of yard and unusual materials to give the pieces a sense of built up history or obscured stories.
Southern Design at The Atlanta Art Fair
Our November/December issue focused on how regional design approaches endure despite the homogenizing force that Instagram aesthetics often exerts on local scenes. At the inaugural Atlanta Art Fair I had the chance to ask a panel of experts what distinguishes the south these days: Tony Purvis, associate director of interior design at SCAD, along with designers Michel Smith Boyd and Monet Masters. As a New Yorker, I was happy to hear their expertise. The designers also joked that their role often expands from designing interiors to being everything from art advisor to therapist for their clients.
Objects: USA 2024
If you’re looking for a more distinctive piece of office seating than the typical task chair, Knoll recently re-released a 1973 design by Andrew Morrison and Bruce Hannah that has a bit more visual pop. As soon as they announced that they were bringing it back, the Dwell team was posting heart-eye emojis over the contemporary colorways.
Dwell Open House: Los Angeles
In October, Dwell gave 300 readers the opportunity to tour three very cool, very different homes on the east side of Los Angeles in person. I was lucky enough to hang out at Chet Callahan’s place all day and meet with many of them. The vibe was amazing, and I can’t wait for future editions.
Table Lamps at Design Miami
At Design Miami, Dobrinka Salzman Gallery showed a solo presentation of lighting by Maine designer Christopher Baker. His metal, wood, and fabric constructions stopped me in my tracks. The table lamps hung with yarn in particular had a ton of personality (see the hairy lighting trend mentioned above).
Chain Mail at Alcova Miami
I’ve been a fan of Dwell 24 alum Maika Palazuelos, who calls her Mexico City studio Panorammma, for a long time, and it has been great to the directions she had taken her work since we first featured her. It was a highlight of the second Miami edition of the Milan design fair Alcova. Like the first, it was a mixed bag of exciting and not-so-exciting work. Dwell contributor Alana Hope Levinson sifted through it all for us and found a few gems.
Morocco in Miami
Miami Art Week has always featured an impossibly long list of competing spectacles, but in recent years it seems like many of the events put on by galleries, institutions, and other entities in the art business have been replaced by “experiential activations” organized by big companies that could take place pretty much anywhere. One exception was a pop up by Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj. With backing from Capital One and the Cultivist, he decked out a storefront on the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall in Miami Beach with an eye-popping riff on Moroccan decor. It played host to a tea salon, a restaurant by Rose Previte, and performances—from traditional Moroccan gnawa to celebrity DJ sets. And it was actually… fun.
Local Lighting at TIWA Selects
I’ll close out the year on a moody December day at Alex Tieghi-Walker’s Manhattan design gallery TIWA Select and a solo show by lighting designer James Cherry. Based in Los Angeles, the designer forms his lighting by creating armatures from materials found wherever he happens to be—sticks in the woods, cast-off metal pieces in Brooklyn, etc. He then wraps them in fabric and coats the fabric with layers of resin until he has just the right level of translucency. Glowing at dusk at the end of one of the shortest days of the year, they were a poetic way to say goodbye to 2024.