Design Miami 2024 is back for the 20th edition at Pride Park in Miami, from December 4 – 8, 2024, with Preview Day on December 3. The curator of this year’s edition, Glenn Adamson, who just curated an exhibition dedicated to Nike at Vitra Design Museum, chose Blue Sky as the leading theme for 2024. Forty-five world-leading galleries present contemporary and historical highlights demonstrating the power of a ‘blue sky thinking’ approach to design – past, present, and future.
Design Miami brief history
In 2005, entrepreneur Craig Robins and gallerist Ambra Medda founded Design Miami following the renovation of the Miami Design District, transformed into one of the world’s most important centers for design, fashion, food, and art. During the following years, Design Miami set up Design Miami.Basel, and, in recent years, Design Miami.Paris, Design Miami.LA.
In October of 2023, Basic.Space announced the acquisition of Design Miami. Jesse Lee, the CEO and Founder of Basic.Space, is now the chairman of the Design Miami board, with Jennifer Roberts remaining as CEO.
Discover Design Miami.Paris 2024
Design Miami 2024: Under a Blue Sky
The Blue Sky theme invites diverse engagement from exhibitors, underpinned by a commitment to design that exceeds expectations through bold leaps of imagination, thoughtful material innovation, and a respect for the natural world that houses us all under one, shared sky. Under this shared theme, we can identify several key thematic threads.
Taking a ‘blue sky thinking’ approach, the theme celebrates design as a fundamentally optimistic human activity, giving way to radical invention through conceptual and material innovation.
The Future Perfect (New York) reflects on the curatorial theme Blue Sky through a curated presentation of almost 100 new works from over 20 artists and designers, including Anina Major, Laurids Gallée, Olivia Cognet, Vikram Goyal, and Sophie Lou Jacobsen. The exhibition space continues exploring bifurcation, leveraging the concept of day and night occurring under a singular sky.
One-half of the booth will showcase works from a myriad of emerging and established artists, including the likes of Chris Wolston, Floris Wubben, Jane Yang-D’Haene, John Hogan, Lindsey Adelman, and Thompson Street Studio. This constellation of objects comprises pieces made especially for the fair alongside works that feel familiar in origin, but represent massive leaps in skill and practice. The second side will center on New Delhi-based designer Vikram Goyal, who is making his United States debut at Design Miami. Trained as an engineer, Goyal’s work utilizes artisanal techniques apparent in the rich legacy of Indian craft, to create modern and contemporary designs.
Living with Design: the bedroom
The theme also focuses on the many ways design offers insight into our living habits. Sarah Myerscough Gallery (London) will delve into the forms and dimensions of the bedroom space. The curated exhibition showcases a collection of works from designers and artists, all centered around furnishing a bedroom.
Highlights include an Ethereal bed and accompanying side tables by distinguished designer Marc Fish, whose creative process focuses on material research. Tadeas Podracky, an experimental designer based in the Czech Republic, contributes a striking mirror – evocative of the opulent aesthetics of Rococo design. Complementing these pieces, there’s a monumental cleft wardrobe by Peter Marigold and Tadanori Tozawa, introducing an architectural presence to the space. Additionally, several specially commissioned works by a diverse array of designers – including the likes of Gareth Neal, Lin Fanglu, Diana Scherer, and Nic Webb – enrich the bedroom space with craftsmanship and artistic vision, inviting viewers to reconsider the significance of their own personal sanctuaries.
The living room
Lamb Gallery (London) debuts in the fair’s Curio program, presenting an immersive environment welcoming visitors into a living room setting. The Magnetic Midnight Maison exhibition unveils Lucía Echavarría’s newest capsule collection. Exploring Echavarría’s anthology of Colombian craft, and drawing inspiration from Miami’s surrounding coastal palette and Art Deco design cues, the furniture collection blends traditional Colombian artistry with a current Miami flair.
Discover Design Miami.Basel 2024
The Magnetic Maison, collection by Lucía Achavarría from Lamb Gallery
Art design from Ukraine
Ukrainian artist, Victoria Yakusha (Antwerp) returns to the Design Miami Curio program in 2024 to present her new collection, Grun. Yakusha’s latest collection explores the extraordinary land of Ukrainian Polissia – home to boundless forests, dense carpets of soft moss, and sleepy swamps. When creating the collection, Yakusha was inspired to create a series of works that transcend mere functionality, to evoke an emotional response and an authentic connection to the natural world. Each design presents a unique geometry that mirrors its natural inspiration, while dark green upholstery evokes moss-covered forest hills and features beaded details reminiscent of morning dew.
Grun armchair by Victoria Yakusha
From Italy: a Gaetano Pesce special edition with Meritalia
In this year’s Curio program, Meritalia (Milan) presents the exhibition Le Edizioni del Pesce. The gallery spotlights one of the great Italian design masters, Gaetano Pesce, to pay homage to his creativity and ongoing creative partnership with the brand. A thread throughout previous editions of Design Miami, Meritalia connects Gaetano’s impression in the United States with his roots in Italian design, presenting a range of items – from umbrella racks and coat hangers to mirrors and lamps, all showcasing his unparalleled skill in manipulating unusual materials.
Under One Sky: A Global Outlook
The theme also draws on the concept of our global community living under one sky, with galleries from around the globe coming together at Design Miami to spotlight artistic voices worldwide.
Based in Mumbai, æquō Gallery (Mumbai) highlights a unique blend of India’s traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design to present a curated selection of pieces all speaking to new explorations, narratives, and design dialogues. This year’s presentation will feature works by Frédéric Imbert, Valériane Lazard, and Florence Louisy, amongst others. Each piece embodies æquō’s philosophy: a balanced collaboration where the designer and artisan share equal prominence. Focusing on contemporary Japanese artists, Ippodo Gallery (New York) similarly focuses on traditional materials or mediums such as ceramic, metal, and wood to trace the journey of recursive design, engineering, and prototyping over the years.
New Voices at Design Miami 2024
A stage for emerging talent, this year’s fair will introduce an array of emerging designers and debut exhibitors including BOCCARA GALLERY, Dobrinka Salzman, Donzella, Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, JCRD Design, and Theoreme Editions within the Gallery program. Making their debut within the Curio program includes 1882 LTD, Anna Karlin, blunk space, Lamb Gallery, Meritalia, Mouvements Modernes, Nader Gammas, NUOVA, Roham Shamekh, and a group presentation by Tanya Singer, Errol Evans, Chris Nicholson, and Trent Jansen; and within the Special Projects program are Alexis Cogul, Mathieu Lehanneur (designer of the Olympic Torch and the Olympic Cauldron for Paris Olympics 2024), R & Company x Haas Brothers, The Spaceless Gallery, and Basic.Space Shop.
Why visit
Design Miami connects the world through extraordinary collectible design, with live fairs that bring together galleries, designers, brands, experts, collectors, and enthusiasts. Each edition of Design Miami features museum-quality 20th and 21st-century furniture, lighting, and objets d’art from the world’s top galleries. Moreover, it showcases immersive design collaborations with celebrated brands. Design Miami’s flagship fairs take place alongside Art Basel in Miami, Florida, each December, in Basel, Switzerland, each June, in Paris, France, each October in conjunction with Art Basel Paris, and in Los Angeles in Spring.
Design Miami, December 4-8, 2024
For professionals and general public, admission ticket
Size: one venue, over 40 galleries, around 30,000 visitors
Visit DesignMiami.com for info
Some images from Design Miami 2023
