In March, 2014, DXV by American Standard opened its New York City flagship showroom at 15 West 20th St. Taking advantage of the showroom’s expansive storefront, DXV has invited a roster of New York designers and architects to create individual month-long window installations.
“For the DXV launch, we asked six well-established designers from around the country each to create a bath or kitchen space drawing on the DXV portfolio of products,” said Jeanette Long, vice president of brand marketing for American Standard. “Those projects were widely seen online and in print. This series of window displays is a natural follow-up to that program and a dynamic, ongoing way of engaging the New York design community right on its own doorstep.”
For the showroom windows, the designers have been asked to devise installations that do not simply feature DXV products, but also express the inspiration behind their choice of particular fixtures and fittings, offering a glimpse into the creative process.
The DXV showroom window series was launched in July with designer Susan Serra, CKD, CAPS, founder of Bornholm Kitchen. Serra was inspired by the DXV Contemporary collection’s polished chrome pot filler.
“It’s both modern and timeless,” she said. “Simple, sculptural, classic – terms that describe the aesthetic of my dual vignette.”
She surrounded the filler with Danish mid-century modern furnishings and art, which share its cool, clean sensibility. In the adjoining window, Serra set a DXV Orchard stainless steel sink from the Classic movement with a DXV Fresno polished chrome culinary faucet from the Modern era on a floor of garden mulch dotted with fine china plates and fresh artichokes.
“The mix of disparate elements reflects the calm and chaos of cooking,” she explained. “The kitchen is where all five senses reside – it’s the province of passion.”
In the month of August, Sophia Chan, senior associate/director of New York Hospitality at VOA Architecture, unveiled her showroom window. It featured bathroom fittings from the Contemporary movement, including the minimal, brushed nickel DXV Percy vessel faucet with stem handle, as well as the polished chrome Slim showerhead.
“We’re choosing these products because they’re modern and exciting,” said Chan. “We expanded on that idea, turning the window into an equivalently modern architectural space that will set off the products to [their] best advantage.”
In September, designer Laura Bohn, principal of Laura Bohn Design and a member of the Interior Design Hall of Fame, created two vignettes. Drawing on the Contemporary movement, Bohn uses a pair of DXV Seagram lavatories – one square, one round – matched with DXV Percy single lever faucets with stem and loop handles. The porcelain sinks are intended for wall mounting, but Bohn displayed one on the back of a vintage bicycle, while the other is exhibited atop a 1930s washing machine drum.
“Both old-fashioned devices not only provide perfect pedestals for the sinks, but also highlight the enormous, yet taken for granted, practical benefits that they, like indoor plumbing and modern bathroom fixtures, bring to our daily lives,” said Bohn. “And of course, the unexpected juxtapositions make for amusing, eye-catching displays.”
For the October window, Alison Spear, AIA, LEED AP, IIDA, director at ArquitectonicaINTERIORS, is using the DXV portfolio’s overall organizing principal – the four most important design movements of the last 150 years – as direct inspiration.
“I’ll explore the whole span of eras, from Classic to Contemporary, creating a time capsule that shows where we were before and where we are now,” she said.
The November window will be designed by Masayuki Sono and Ostap Rudakevych, co-principals of the firm Clouds Architecture Office. The December window will be the work of Barbara Kurgan, principal of BKOK, who has designed interiors, products and furniture collections for such clients as Aerin Lauder and Martha Stewart.
