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A CHAMBER OF CURIOSITIES (AND OBJECTS TO FASCINATE)
The new New York design gallery Chamber is aptly named. It is clean and pristine, a long and narrow space on the ground floor of the HL23 building, just where the High Line crosses West Twenty-third Street, and in many ways it resembles a cabinet of curiosities, or better, a chamber of curiosities. When Juan Garcia Mosqueda, formerly part of the Murray Moss team, set out to create Chamber, he opted for an unusual approach: a retail space that would be curated every two years or so and offer some of the most interesting, unusual, and even arcane objects—some specially made for Chamber and others either contemporary or vintage design.

The opening offerings were curated by Studio Job and range from a minimalist glass table by the Japanese designer nendo to vintage Dutch children’s toys, from rugs by the French designer Matali Crasset to works from a host of interesting makers including Maarten Baas and Aldo Bakker. “It is an ensemble,” says Chamber’s director Michael Vince Snyder, also a Moss alumnus. “This is much more of an exhibition approach.”

The building itself was designed by the Los Angeles architect Neil Denari (who is represented in the collection by a neon sculpture). The Chamber space, by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of MOS Architects of New York, is aimed at showing off the objects and not competing with them. And to good effect: Chamber is a hybrid, neither gallery nor showroom nor shop precisely, but rather a bit of each. A casual visitor might pop in off the High Line for a brief tour; a design connoisseur could while away a good hour there, maybe even more. chambernyc.com