Design Gallery Dudd Haus Opens a Philadelphia Storefront

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Design Gallery Dudd Haus Opens a Philadelphia Storefront

In the ever-developing Philadelphia Art & Design District, part of the Old City neighborhood, a new collectively driven design gallery named Dudd Haus has opened with a roster of 25 emerging and underrepresented designers and studios. Led by Chris Held, founder of the furniture company Nice Condo, and Charles Constantine, co-founder of design and manufacturing firm Bestcase, Dudd Haus is an offshoot of the independent exhibition platform JONALDDUDD, anchored by a permanent storefront, an online shop, and a 1st Dibs presence. The artfully adorned space, lined with flowing curtains, incorporates furniture and decor, as well as lighting and home goods.

“The goal is collaboration, increased visibility, and ultimately a sustainable living through one’s design practice,” Held shares. Dudd Haus aims to foster a flourishing design community and utilize its group action to overcome the barriers that a traditional gallery model often represents. In addition to wares from Nice Condo and Bestcase, Dudd Haus showcases creations by Fort Standard, Chen & Kai, Jean-Michel Gadoua, Nine Stories Co, Scott Newlin, Spacecraft, and many other innovators. From Koba’s geometric Model 3 credenza to H. Bigeleisen Designs’ purple, tubular Outdoor Throne Chair and Realm’s slender mahogany Oxalis Cocktail Stand with its bold verdigris copper inlay, the pieces are worthy of the pioneering concept.—David Graver

PLAY
Within a Beirut Members Club, a Trove of Local Craft and Vintage Treasure

Set across three restored 19th-century homes in Beirut’s Gemmayzeh neighborhood, Beihouse is a newly opened members club that offers a layered refuge to the city’s artist community. For the project, realized by Linda Boronkay, nearly every element was custom-made by Lebanese artisans, from straw-inlaid bar fronts to intricate chandeliers and floral plasterwork, embedding the space with cultural reverence and material richness. Each room reveals a narrative—whether that is the mosaic-filled lounge nodding to Beirut’s nightlife or the mirrored private dining room hidden behind a concealed door.

Upstairs, a moody living room shifts into a cigar lounge by night. Anchored by chef Tarek Alameddine, formerly a sous-chef at Noma, the space balances nostalgia and invention, offering a new locus of community in a city still healing. A rooftop garden and ceramics studio host a rotating program of workshops and exhibitions, extending the club’s role as both sanctuary and cultural platform.—Jenna Adrian-Diaz

STAY
A Thoughtful Restoration Resurrects one of Philadelphia’s Grandest Hotels

When the doors of The Bellevue-Stratford opened in 1904, the French-Renaissance-style hotel was lauded as a beacon of Philadelphia’s Gilded Age. Now, a thoughtful renovation has reawakened the “Grand Dame of Broad Street” as The Bellevue.

Artifacts of the past remain—an ornately carved four-time-zone clock, restored by local analog clock masters; a gold letter box bearing William Shakespeare’s likeness; original Edison-era electric panels—melding seamlessly with contemporary amenities. The 184 guest rooms, of which one moody suite has been christened the “Dark and Stormy,” follow suit, with intricate millwork and classical fireplaces calling to Parisian pieds-à-terre alongside marble-tiled bathrooms stocked with violet leaf and blonde cedar-scented products.—Abby Saldana

VISIT
In Rome, a Renaissance Landmark Approaches its Reopening

After nearly five decades of closure, the Grotto of Diana at Villa d’Este will finally reopen to the public on May 6. This comes after a two-year restoration of the barrel-vaulted site and its stone tableaux. Built between 1570 and 1572, the grotto is a richly decorated nymphaeum featuring marine mosaics, mythological bas-reliefs, and symbolic scenes drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Restoration efforts, led by the Autonomous Institute of Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este and supported by Fendi, addressed structural damage, environmental erosion, and material decay, while enhancements included new lighting and a protective glass panel in the loggia overlooking Rome. The project aimed to stabilize and interpret the site’s layered history, ensuring that it’ll stand for generations to come.—J.A.D.

SOURCE
Beni Rugs and Studio KO Turn to Paper Artifacts for their Newest Collaboration

If the spirit of office productivity could imprint upon a room, then the Milan Design Week installation from Beni Rugs, Colin King, and Studio KO might very well represent an excavation of that sentiment from days long since passed. Housed within a 1930s-era textile shop, button store, and bank the immersive presentation set the Beni Rug designs from the new Intersection collection amidst thousands of sheets of historic paper, sourced from the archives of factories in Portugal and Spain, which act as a surreal wallcovering.

Designed in collaboration with Studio KO, the rugs reference paper artifacts—from a redacted document to graph paper, an old journal, and more—and introduce two techniques, the Rabat weave and hand-embroidered flatweaves. Two years of research and development went into translating the 500-year-old R’bati method into the former. As part of 5Vie, the ephemeral installation toyed with temporality.—D.G.

SEE
Almine Rech Shines a Light on Picasso’s Still Lifes

For all the acclaim surrounding Pablo Picasso and the ways in which his application of Cubism transformed figurative painting, his still lifes are largely under-exhibited by comparison. A forthcoming exhibition at Almine Rech’s Upper East Side gallery aims to change that. Together with the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, the gallery will bring more than 40 examples of Picasso’s paintings and drawings across the genre to New York, emphasizing the undersung role that everyday objects—ranging from the guitar, the bottle and drinking glass—played in shaping the artist’s development of Cubism.—J.A.D.

OBSESS
Quiet Town is the Studio Behind Aesthetes’ Favorite Bathroom Accessories

Together with her co-founder and husband, Michael, Lisa Fine has not-so-quietly recast the bathroom as a canvas for artistic expression with Quiet Town’s collection of rugs, towels, and shower curtains that pay homage to everything from Marfa’s art scene to the architecture of Le Corbusier. The studio’s next frontier is a pioneering circularity program to enable its vinyl Sun Shower curtains to be recycled. Come June, fans can also expect a fresh collection of Sun Showers that evoke the materiality and Art Deco silhouettes of Miami’s built environment.—J.A.D.