Showroom

Pierre Yovanovitch Mobilier

Furniture made by European artisans to a haute facture standard, from consciously sourced materials.

Pierre Yovanovitch Mobilier is the French interior architect's furniture line, and its New York gallery takes the penthouse floor at 555 West 25th Street in Chelsea. It opened in December 2023 as the practice's first American showroom, and Dezeen put the space at around 10,000 square feet of gallery and office.

What is shown is the Mobilier collection rather than a represented range, seating, tables, lighting, mirrors and rugs, with pieces carrying names instead of model numbers. The Bear Chair is the one most people arrive knowing. Yovanovitch hangs contemporary art among the furniture, work by Camille Henrot, Wolfgang Tillmans and Alicja Kwade among others, which is a statement about how the pieces are meant to be lived with rather than a decoration of the showroom.

A gallery floor rather than a trade suite changes the visit. The pieces are presented as objects with space around them, which is how they were drawn and how they behave, and it is the clearest argument in the city that a single chair can carry a room.

That is also what to watch. These are strong pieces with character, and a room given two or three of them is having a conversation, while a room given eight is having an argument.

The gallery is open to the public on weekdays from 10 to 6 and takes no appointment.

Choose the one piece that will carry the room before choosing anything else. Yovanovitch furniture works as a focal object rather than as a set, so decide what it is doing in the scheme and buy for that, rather than assembling a suite and hoping the room absorbs it.