#85 The making of PAVED STATES
Chicago’s first emerging design & concept store took place at NeoCon.
Sixtysix was hired to create a massive, city-wide design program that would advocate for all types of creatives and designers in the City of Chicago.
It was an enormous project funded in part by THE MART, BIFMA, the City of Chicago, and numerous corporate sponsors.
Laura and I, along with our small Studio Sixtysix team, developed the project for months.
The programming was fantastic. A-List talent planned for a sold-out performance at Harris Theater, studio tours, exclusive museum vault tours, extraordinary dining experiences, music, comedy, art, dance.
We secured major financial and industry support, which involved me flying to a conference center in Florida to get buy-in from the CEOs of every major furniture company. All of whom, while willingly participating in the meeting, were rivals—the five families meeting from The Godfather came to mind. It worked. They all agreed to support it.
I hired the design firm One Design to put together a full brand and visual identity. Everything was coming together perfectly, except for one thing…
This was 2019.
The pandemic hit and the entire project sank. The world got weird. Laura started giving me haircuts in our bathroom.
When we were allowed to crawl out of our home offices, I picked up with THE MART and continued to gently advocate for emerging designers. They formed an advisory board which I gladly joined.
In late 2024 I was asked for feedback on some design programming for NeoCon and suggested that the approach be shifted into a design gallery and concept store, something that would emphasize the core goals of NeoCon—presenting the most important ideas in furniture design—while reaching out to the broader design community.
They agreed.
I had six months to put the show together. I came up with a name, PAVED STATES. It had a great sound, a reference to urban areas and living in a mindset that has been built for new ideas. The idea of “paving the way” for future designers fit well and had a Chicago vibe to it, which I liked.
I threw a detailed outline together, some brief curating notes, and put the entire project onto Abigail Grohmann’s desk who spent the next several months carefully crafting the exhibition and concept store.
Laura dove into partners and brought on the support of Rivian. Gianna made sure I spelled everything right. We brought on Points of Sail to design the space and the custom exhibition furniture, Rainbolt for production, Rory Pipia for identity design, the staff from Notre for our retail experience, and Novita Communications for PR.
The exhibition, which ran for four days, was a huge success. I’ve always had such admiration from what Alcova, Superstudio, Capsule, and the other emerging and experimental design shows do in Milan each year. To play a part in bringing a piece of that energy back to Chicago was a huge reward.