How the MoMA Design Store revamped its own store design

Driven in part by supply chain headaches that arose early in the Covid-19 pandemic, some major retailers have been paring down the number of products in stores, with the added benefit that a more curated assortment better showcases the remaining products and spares shoppers the paralysis of deciding between 17 different spatulas.

If anyone knows curation, it’s MoMA, Manhattan’s modern art and design museum that opened in 1929. So it will come as no surprise that its newly redesigned MoMA Design Store in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood has trimmed its product selection by 30%, and that a driving force behind the redesign was to improve discovery and engagement for shoppers.

“We’ve taken SKUs out of the store to give each SKU space to really shine,” Jesse Goldstine, MoMA’s chief retail officer, told Retail Brew on a recent visit to the store, which had been closed for the renovation since May 16 and reopened September 27.

Befitting the museum’s appreciation for classic design—like the 1956 lounge chair and ottoman designed by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller furniture that are both part of MoMA’s collection and for sale in its design store—Goldstine said a priority of the redesign was to reveal long-hidden features of the SoHo building.

“Our original brief was, ‘Let’s celebrate the store as it is,’” Goldstine said. “We were covering it up before.”

The redesigned store, by the Brooklyn-based Peterson Rich Office architecture and design firm, removed the store’s dropped ceilings, revealing the original tin ceiling in the building, which was built in 1884. Ditto for the store’s now-exposed cast-iron columns, which had been enclosed in faceted glass.

Every story tells a picture: Entering the store from Spring Street, the first thing shoppers previously encountered was the cash-register bank and its line, but that is now located along the wall in the back of the store.

Today the front of the store is reserved for what Goldstine calls “storytelling” elements that don’t simply describe products but rather contextualize them as highlights of both design and the museum’s collection.

A display table at the entrance of the store, for example, features the amoeba-shaped clear-glass vase designed by Alvar Aalto in 1936 for Finland glass manufacturer Karhula-Iittala. But along with the typical retail treatment of showcasing the vase, the display also includes a photograph of the vase as it appeared in a 1938 MoMA exhibit dedicated to the artist, and the story of its origin: “When Finnish design legend Alvar Aalto first showed this deliriously wavy vase at the World’s Fair in 1937, its sinuous lines and shape caused an instant sensation.”

While such descriptions may increase shoppers’ likelihood of buying “deliriously wavy” vases, it also serves the store’s mission of championing MoMA’s collection and enticing shoppers to visit the museum.

“We’re really focused on the design collection and products and designers that are in the collection,” Goldstine said.

Wall shook up: The most prominent new feature of the redesigned store is what it’s calling the Modern Mural, which takes up most of the back wall. The mural, which is commissioned by MoMA, will be rotated out for new commissions on an ongoing basis. Currently featured is a colorful work by New York-based artist Nina Chanel Abney, “Love NYC,” which blends elements of the city’s streetscape with reference to works that are part of the museum’s collection by artists including Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí, and Marcel Duchamp.

It’s a reminder that while “curation” is a retail buzzword, the MoMA Design Store is linked to a staff of actual curators, and products aren’t carried in the store unless they first pass muster with the curatorial staff.

You’d think that an exception to the rule would be the M&Ms for sale near the cash registers, with “MoMA” printed on the colorful shells…but you’d be wrong. The candies are part of the museum’s collection, where the patented hard-shell design of the candies is lauded for helping prevent their chocolate from melting when the candies were first popularized after being part of rations for soldiers during World War II.

“The innovation of taking chocolate and protecting it from melting,” Goldstine said as he picked up a package in the newly designed store. “That’s an innovation. That is smart design. And we’re celebrating that in this particular offering.”