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Excellent Spaces A visual journal by Style Editor Wendy Goodman. The Dining Location The prints are John Baldessari’s Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Finest of Thirty-Six Efforts) (1973 ). “This piece has been in every home that we have actually resided in,” says Jessica Morgan. The table is a 2016 model by El Último Grito. The Verner Panton Flowerpot pendant lights are by & Custom. The Eero Saarinen Tulip side chairs are by Knoll. The Mathilda chairs are by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso. Picture: Annie Schlechter
It’s fitting that the director of an arts organization understood for its association with minimalism lives in a home light on stuff.
” Frankly, I don’t like having things,” says Jessica Morgan, who leads the Dia Art Foundation, sitting at a pristine table on the 2nd story of the Soho loft she shows her household. Morgan, who grew up in London, attributes her aversion to objects to moving typically when she was a girl. “The less I needed to load the much better. It stuck to me,” she states.
When she was hired by Dia in 2015 after 12 years as a manager at the Tate Modern, Morgan brought extremely little to New York beyond books, clothing, and an enviable art collection, mostly presents from artist good friends. In the beginning, she lived beside a Dia website, Walter De Maria’s New york city Earth Room on Wooster Street, for a few months while she looked for a house. The process was “long and tortuous,” Morgan states. Everything she stumbled upon required work, and with other Dia sites going through considerable upgrades at the time, she wasn’t up for a building job at home.
” I ‘d almost given up,” she states. Then, after years of leasing, she discovered the duplex right before the pandemic. It was in a 19th-century previous safe factory and had been remodelled by the architect Wendy Cronk for the previous owner as a pied-à-terre.
” I don’t think they ‘d even utilized the oven,” Morgan says. Just cosmetic modifications followed– a fresh coat of paint and brighter lighting for the cooking area. The bedrooms stayed on the lower floor, where Morgan benefited from a built-in library, and the upstairs was established for business and amusing.
Throughout, artworks by Lawrence Weiner and Lee Ufan are paired with reproductions of crucial modernist furnishings by the similarity Le Corbusier and Gerrit Rietveld. The clean lines and walls in neutral or primaries occur to abide by the aesthetic worths of the Bauhaus style, though for Morgan, sparse design is about something much easier.
” We’re not truly tchotchkes people,” she states.
The Fireplace The bookshelves belong to a USM Haller system. The green Binta chair is by Philippe Bestenheider. The round marble table is by Saarinen from Knoll. Image: Annie Schlechter
The Seating Area The couch is by Urquiola and the red armchair is by Ron Arad, both from Moroso. The Scighera coffee table is by Piero Lissoni for Cassina. The Le Corbusier Lampe de Marseille light was produced by Nemo. The lamp above the breakfast table is the PH5 1958 by Poul Henningsen. Picture: Annie Schlechter
The Library The built-ins and a 2nd USM shelving system are downstairs, in between the bed rooms. The lithographs are by Agnes Martin from a 1990 series Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Main Bedroom The Gerrit Rietveld chair was produced by Cassina. The 1998 etching is Mary Heilmann ‘s 21st Century Fox. The vase on the credenza is Untitled by Laura Letinsky from the 2022 “Preparing for Flowers” series. Photo: Annie Schlechter
The 2nd Bedroom The Callimaco lamp by Ettore Sottsass was produced by Artemide. The 2012 watercolors are by Neal Tait. Picture: Annie Schlechter
The Alcove” Mary’s is the only work I have actually ever purchased,” states Morgan, sitting beneath Heilmann’s Geometric Spin ( 2021) in the nook by the cooking area. Photo: Annie Schlechter
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this short article in the March 23, 2026, concern of New York Magazine.
Desire more stories like this one? Subscribe now to support our journalism and get unrestricted access to our coverage. If you choose to read in print, you can likewise find this article in the March 23, 2026, issue of New york city Magazine.
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