1925–2025

This past weekend, warm sun hit the glossy black ziggurated façades of the MATTER and SHAPE pavilions during the second edition of the design salon, which took pride of place in the Jardins des Tuileries, Paris. This year, director Matthieu Pinet and creative director Dan Thawley drew inspiration from the centenary of the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which was not only the birthplace of the ornate and lavish Art Deco style, emphasizing elegance and craftsmanship, but also the first time architects like Konstantin Melnikov and Le Corbusier presented work that sought to break away from traditional, decorative aesthetics and embrace a utilitarian approach with industrial materials. As such, 1925 represented the shifting and sometimes opposing design values of the era.

100 years later, Pinet and Thawley struck a similar balance between art and commerce, form and function, business and pleasure with this year’s list of over 60 exhibitors, which included a mix of established names and emerging talents in the fields of industrial design, objects, interiors, fashion, and decorative arts. New participants, including 22 System ft. India Mahdavi, Aalvo Gallery, Byredo x Bénoit Lalloz, cc-tapis, Kiko Kostadinov x Soft Baroque, Laguna B, Lobmeyr x Gohar World, Mousse x Cinzia Ruggieri, NO GA, Sanayi313, and Vitra, joined returning exhibitors such as Flos, GRAU, NM3, and Teget in the salon’s mission to elevate new perspectives in design. There was a special section dedicated entirely to glass, and MATTER and SHAPE also featured a display by international jewelry fair Joya and an exclusive preview of work curated with Collectible and Heim+Vilardich, presenting a productive way of working with projects that could be framed as competitors.

Willo Perron returned with a new architectural concept for the design of the fair focused on light and reflections, expressed through the mirrored exterior, light-box ceilings, and mirrored spaces in the interior of the two pavilions, which doubled in size this year. Perron also designed the MATTER and SHAPE restaurant by Luca Pronzato’s WE ARE ONA, which returned for its second year and offered “unique culinary experiences” by chef Imogen Kwok. Perron’s new mirrors for NO GA circled the tables, creating a closed space and a double reflection of the illustrious opening-night crowd, which also included David Blaine. According to one guest, at some point during dinner, the magician went from table to table performing card tricks, “leaving some of the female diners so enthralled they forgot to eat their caviar rice-ball eggs.”

The Tuileries tent hosted takeaway restaurant Sacaitering (by Sacaï) and the MATTER and SHAPE shop, while the Concorde tent by Zara Home x Dreamin’ Man Café returned, along with the Perron-designed theater, where talks and film screenings were held. This year’s Jil Sander Design Talks program tackled the philosophy of the home and the relationship between architecture and advocacy, among other themes.

In the final talk of the salon, PIN–UP’s Felix Burrichter joined historian Adrián Prieto, Fondation Cartier director Chris Dercon, and Perron to discuss the cultural impact of temporary pavilion architecture, with a particular focus on Le Corbusier’s Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau (which also inspired a show Burrichter curated in 2015 at the Swiss Institute in New York). Le Corbusier’s original 1925 pavilion, a bold introduction to modular living and the mechanization of the home, horrified both exhibition organizers and the public at the time. A century later, it’s celebrated as one of Modernism’s defining works. If MATTER and SHAPE serves as a contemporary cousin to that 1925 fair — an exploration of design’s potential futures, a mirror to how we live and what we live with — then it’s not so much a question of whether the 2025 edition will be remembered in 2125, but rather which innovations of today will shape the world of tomorrow, and how they, too, will be either forgotten or celebrated as milestones of their time.