When an art-collecting friend approached designer Alexandra Loew to reimagine his 900-square-foot NYC apartment, he had run out of places to display his artwork, which includes works by Picasso, Le Corbusier, and Andres Serrano and the space was in disarray. “It really needed an edit above all else,” she said.
Loew looked to the work of 19th-century English architect Sir John Soane for inspiration in organizing the apartment; particularly “the ways he transformed his own home into a gallery for his ever-growing collections, and devised architectural methods to create apertures into worlds-within-worlds inside small labyrinthine spaces.”
Loew took a three-part approach, culling extraneous pieces from the collection, devising a creative system for displaying the remaining works in the apartment, and identifying holes in the portfolio and bringing in new pieces to fill the gaps. The finished space still has the drama of a crazed collector’s lair?but with the elements arranged in an orderly fashion. Join us for a tour. Photography by Simon Upton courtesy of Alexandra Loew, except where noted.

Above: The apartment is located in a former brewery dating from 1890. “In the 1990s, my client befriended several New York flea market dealers who taught him to be a resourceful and informed collector,” Loew says.

Above: The 10-by-15-foot foyer is clad in a coral silk wall covering. So as to not damage the silk and because her cli...