Vitra Celebrates Spring with Innovative Floral Installation by Lutfi Janania for NYCxDESIGN
Inspired by Vitra’s Flower Guide and on view in coordination with NYCxDESIGN from May 11-18
New York, NY, April 18, 2022 - For NYCxDESIGN this Spring, Vitra has partnered with the Festival to commission floral artist Lutfi Janania to create a series of innovative, sculptural, organic floral installations inspired by the newly released Vitra Flower Guide: a resource of inspirations, tips and examples of floral design to enliven the spaces we live and work in. Marking an opportunity for the public to visit Vitra’s New York Studio (by appointment only) from May 11-18, the installations are designed to inspire and underscore the potential for flora to enliven home and office spaces.
To celebrate Vitra’s recently released Flower Guide and a new introduction to the Vase Découpage collection by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, NYCxDESIGN will curate an installation in Vitra’s Madison Avenue Studio that anticipates the May 14 launch of the Museum of Arts and Design’s Flower Craft exhibition. Vitra’s Flower Guide is a quick reference to how to style playful, engaging, organic installations that bring a natural freshness to any space. Featuring Vitra vases, the beautifully-illustrated guide celebrates the potential for floral installations to bring a seasonal style and flare to the office and home spaces that we inhabit.
Lutfi Janania, one of New York City’s freshest creative voices in the floral space, part of the upcoming Museum of Arts and Design exhibition Flower Craft, will take over the Vitra Studio with a unique installation of floral artistry inspired by the Vitra Flower Guide.
The installation will set the stage for two special conversations during NYCxDESIGN:
- From Studio to Museum: A dive into the world of floral design, hosted by NYCxDESIGN and Vitra on the evening of May 11 to celebrate the opening of the installation. Hosted by the president of Vitra North America, Melissa Shelton, the conversation with Lutfi Janania and Elissa Auther, curator of the Museum of Arts and Design’s Flower Craft exhibition, will preview the MAD exhibition (opening on May 14) and celebrate Vitra’s Flower Guide. Additional details and RSVP for the talk can be found here.
- On May 18, to close the installation, Vitra will hold a talk titled Dynamic Spaces, building off the recent Vitra Session on flexible office systems which launched Vitra’s new modular system for contemporary workspaces, Comma. Dynamic Spaces will bring together speakers with diverse perspectives on office design; panelists to be announced, and RSVP details for the talk can be found here.
Vitra’s New York Studio is open by appointment only, providing a space to explore Vitra’s world of design and showcasing objects emblematic of the brand’s history. Coinciding with the floral installation, there will also be a special installation of Comma, Vitra’s answer to the growing requirement for office environments to be easily adaptable and meet changing modes of work.
To visit the studio, register for a visit here.
About Vitra
Vitra is a Swiss furniture company, known worldwide for creating innovative products with iconic designers. Vitra’s catalog includes furniture, lighting, and objects from mid-century titans Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Verner Panton, Alexander Girard and Jean Prouvé, as well as works from lauded designers including Antonio Citterio, Jasper Morrison, Alberto Meda, Maarten van Severen, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Hella Jongerius and BarberOsgerby. Vitra products are installed worldwide by architects and designers in living, working, and public spaces that inspire comfort, engagement, and productivity.
Founded by Willi and Erika Fehlbaum in 1957, Vitra has been a family run business for more than 80 years and embraces sustainability as a corporate attitude that finds expression in every aspect of the company. Vitra’s campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany is a renowned destination for the exploration of design’s history and vanguard and home to the Vitra Design Museum. The campus features buildings by a wide-ranging group of architects, including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron, and SANAA, among others.
About NYCxDESIGN
Design is core to New York City’s identity and creative DNA. At NYCxDESIGN, our mission is to support, empower, and grow the city’s incredible design sector. Our internationally renowned Annual Design Festival, established in 2013, showcases the immense talent and diversity of the city’s designers, makers, and manufacturers, along with cutting-edge design businesses and districts, and world-class cultural and academic design institutions. The Festival attracts 300,000+ national and international visitors to the city, generating significant economic activity across the boroughs with hundreds of events about design and innovation, creativity, culture, inclusivity, sustainability, and resiliency. As a non-profit organization, NYCxDESIGN also runs an impactful year-round program increasing diversity, equitable opportunity, and inclusion within the city’s design professions, while inspiring the city’s young adults to become the city’s designers of tomorrow.
About Lutfi Janania
Lutfi Janania is a Brooklyn-based artist using botanical materials to express a vision of fantasy, transporting the viewer to a new world. Originally from Honduras, Janania’s sculptural work explores dimensionality, texture, and color through the use of dried plants, live flora, and unconventional matter. His upbringing in the lush, tropical Honduran bioreserve informs his aesthetic, bringing the viewer to the dreamlike environment of his childhood home. As the founder of Rosalila Studio, a moniker inspired by the women in his family named after flowers, Janania creates botanical sculptures as well as live arrangements and decorative creations such as Palm fiber mirrors and earthenware ceramic vessels, all expressed through his boundless creative lens. The resulting works are a visually arresting series of motifs that confront common expectations of the natural world - an amalgamation of legacy, fantasy, beauty, and curiosity.