Nina Chanel Abney’s Art Enlivens MoMA Design Store In Soho

Peterson Rich Office’s client list is an art-world who’s who: The Whitney, Galerie Perrotin, Mickalene Thomas, Nina Chanel Abney. The latter is turning out to be a two-time collaboration. Principals Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich are completing her Hudson Valley studio, on the heels of reimagining New York’s MoMA Design Store, Soho, where Abney’s Gotham-centric mural spans an entire wall.

It’s one of many bright spots in the two-story project’s renovation, which was four years in the making—the 1884 cast-iron building it’s in is landmarked, and the shop had been largely untouched since opening in 2001—but, remarkably, required only a four-month store closure. That’s because PRO did what it does best, “revealing the original character and highlighting it with contemporary interventions,” Rich says. Here, that translated to exposing cast-iron columns and tin ceiling portions, sanding down existing flooring, unearthing windows blocked by vitrine displays, and, with MoMA chief retail officer Jesse Goldstine, reducing product SKUs by 30 percent. Then came the highlighting, perhaps the most prominent move being the insertion of RAL 5024, versions of which PRO came across in the store’s catalog archives. “Sky blue in its architecture is not part of MoMA’s DNA,” Rich continues, “but it helped create merchandise hierarchy—and now the client is using it in branding.” That color expertise is coming in handy for an imminent commission: exhibition design for the Costume Institute’s spring show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for which PRO is also reenvisioning its dining and retail spaces.