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At Altitude: MAZE St. Moritz 2026 and the New Language of Design

At Altitude: MAZE St. Moritz 2026 and the New Language of Design February 18, 2026Interior Design, St. MoritzOff

At Altitude: MAZE St. Moritz and the Quiet Power of Design

St. Moritz in winter has a particular silence. The kind that absorbs sound and sharpens vision. Snow does that. So does altitude.

From February 26 to March 1, 2026, MAZE unfolds inside the historic Reine Victoria, Theatersaal, Via Rosatsch 18, in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The setting matters. You feel it immediately. High ceilings. Old-world elegance. A certain restraint that filters everything placed inside it.

When I stepped into the fair, I expected alpine glamour. What I found instead was concentration.

No spectacle. No frantic visual noise. Just objects holding their ground.

Friedman Benda’s presentation immediately pulled me inward. Not because it shouted, but because it knew exactly what it was doing.

At the center stood Ettore Sottsass.

Before Memphis. Before the myth. Before the Instagram geometry. What we see here is the 1955 to 1965 Sottsass – restless, searching, moving between ceramics, furniture, painting. There is something almost intimate about encountering his early works in this setting. Opera Cosmica from 1958 carries weight, but not ego. It feels exploratory, cosmic in the literal sense, as if he was mapping internal galaxies rather than designing objects.

Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Ettore Sottsass – Photography by Timothy Doyon

The rare ceramics, displayed on a historic cabinet from 1963, feel tactile and vulnerable. You sense the experiment. The risk.

Across from Sottsass, the dialogue deepens.

Andrea Branzi’s 2014 lamp stands like an intellectual punctuation mark. Quiet but precise. It anticipates his upcoming retrospective at Triennale Milano in 2026, yet it does not rely on legacy. It simply exists with authority.

Then Wendell Castle’s Evening Star from 2016. A cantilevered ash settee that feels carved rather than constructed. Sculptural, grounded, unapologetically American in its physicality. It does not invite you to sit. It invites you to consider gravity.

The generational layering becomes more compelling as you move through the booth.

Estúdio Campana’s Paisagem Mirror, presented for the first time to a European audience, brings a Brazilian pulse into the alpine restraint. Aluminum becomes landscape. Reflection becomes distortion. Humberto Campana’s language of transformation is unmistakable – elevating the everyday into something ceremonial.

Joris Laarman’s Nimbus, carved from a single block of marble, attempts to freeze clouds. Marble is permanence. Clouds are not. The contradiction is what makes it powerful.

Courtsey of Friedman Benda and Joris Laarman – Photography by Leonard Fäustle

Faye Toogood’s Lode I feels excavated rather than designed. A console that suggests archaeology instead of production. Time becomes material.

Raphael Navot’s Acrostic series introduces refinement without coldness. Interlocking volumes, subtle palette shifts, material nuance. Luxury here is about touch, not statement.

And then the light.

Carmen D’Apollonio’s sculptural lamps feel emotional, almost confessional. Thaddeus Wolfe’s glass works appear fractured yet deliberate, like controlled geological accidents.

Courtsey ofFriedman Benda and Carmen D’Apollonio – photography by Evan Bedford

What strikes me most is the coherence. Friedman Benda has long positioned itself at the intersection of contemporary design, craft, architecture, fine art, and technological research. In St. Moritz, that philosophy feels distilled. Focused. Intentional.

MAZE itself mirrors that energy. It does not compete with the scale of global art fairs. It operates differently – more selective, more intimate, almost alpine in temperament.

Perhaps that is why this presentation feels so right here.

At this altitude, excess feels unnecessary.

What remains is form, clarity, and the quiet confidence of design that will endure long after the snow melts.

Fair Information
MAZE St. Moritz
Reine Victoria, Theatersaal
Via Rosatsch 18
St. Moritz, Switzerland

By invitation
February 26 | 5 pm – 9 pm

Public days
February 27 – 28 | 3 pm – 8 pm
March 1 | 1 pm – 6 pm

More information:
www.friedmanbenda.com

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