Most Aesthetic Spaces in NYC

Aesthetic gets misused. It has become a synonym for visually pleasing -- something that photographs well, something that matches. But the original meaning of the word is sensory: aesthetics is the study of how things are experienced. Not how they look. How they feel.

The spaces worth calling beautiful are the ones where beauty serves the experience, not the other way around. Warmth, material, restraint.

The Places

Lore Bathing Club / 676 Broadway, SoHo

Lore is designed with a philosophy rather than a concept. Natural materials -- wood, stone, linen -- in their actual qualities, not imitations of themselves. Light that shifts with the ritual: brighter in the cold zone, deeper in the heat. The interior design doesn't demand your attention. It supports the experience you are having. The aesthetic is in service of the sensation.

The Pattern

In each of the best spaces in the city, beauty is a means, not an end. The design is in service of something specific: heat, music, flowers, art.

The design of Lore is easiest to understand when you are sitting inside it. It is a material expression of a single idea: that beauty and therapy are not different things.

676 Broadway. Come see.