Buon Giorno, Alessi

Edited by Craig Kellogg -- Interior Design, 10/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Along with neighboring Moss, the new Alessi flagship may make its block of SoHo the most mercilessly curated in New York. "It's difficult to show all 3,000 of our objects," managing director Alessio Alessi Anghini admits. The 980-square-foot retail concept, by Asymptote's Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, accommodates a tenth of the total on a rotating basis—either in niches of vacuum-formed PVC or on white bent-steel modular shelving illuminated by LED eyeball fixtures. The company's Ettore Sottsass, Jasper Morrison, and Achille Castiglioni tableware, however, is pressed into constant service at the store's coffee bar, starting at 7:00 AM daily.