A visual diary by Design Editor Wendy Goodman.
The Dining Area The prints are John Baldessari’s Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts) (1973). “This piece has been in every home that we have lived in,” says Jessica Morgan. The table is a 2016 prototype by El Último Grito. The Verner Panton Flowerpot pendant lamps are by &Tradition. The Eero Saarinen Tulip side chairs are by Knoll. The Mathilda chairs are by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
It’s fitting that the director of an arts organization known for its association with minimalism lives in a home light on stuff.
“Frankly, I don’t like having things,” says Jessica Morgan, who leads the Dia Art Foundation, sitting at a spotless table on the second story of the Soho loft she shares with her family. Morgan, who grew up in London, attributes her aversion to objects to moving often when she was a young woman. “The less I had to pack the better. It stuck with me,” she says.
When she was hired by Dia in 2015 after 12 years as a curator at the Tate Modern, Morgan brought very little to New York beyond books, clothes, and an enviable art collection, mostly gifts from artist friends. At first, she lived next to a Dia site, Walter De Maria’s New York Earth Room on Wooster Street, for a few months while she looked for an apartment. The process was “long and tortuous,” Morgan says. Everything she came across needed work, and with other Dia sites undergoing significant upgrades at the time, she wasn’t up for a construction project at home.
“I’d almost given up,” she says. Then, after years of renting, she found the duplex right before the pandemic. It was in a 19th-century former safe factory and had been renovated by the architect Wendy Cronk for the previous owner as a pied-à-terre.
“I don’t think they’d even used the oven,” Morgan says. Only cosmetic changes followed—a fresh coat of paint and brighter lighting for the kitchen. The bedrooms remained on the lower floor, where Morgan took advantage of a built-in library, and the upstairs was set up for business and entertaining.
Throughout, artworks by Lawrence Weiner and Lee Ufan are paired with reproductions of important modernist furniture by the likes of Le Corbusier and Gerrit Rietveld. The clean lines and walls in neutral or primary colors happen to adhere to the aesthetic values of the Bauhaus style, though for Morgan, sparse decoration is about something much simpler.
“We’re not really tchotchkes people,” she says.
The Fireplace The bookshelves are part of a USM Haller system. The green Binta chair is by Philippe Bestenheider. The round marble table is by Saarinen from Knoll.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Seating Area The sofa is by Urquiola and the red armchair is by Ron Arad, both from Moroso. The Scighera coffee table is by Piero Lissoni for Cassina. The Le Corbusier Lampe de Marseille light was produced by Nemo. The lamp above the breakfast table is the PH5 1958 by Poul Henningsen.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Library The built-ins and a second USM shelving system are downstairs, between the bedrooms. The lithographs are by Agnes Martin from a 1990 series
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Main Bedroom The Gerrit Rietveld chair was produced by Cassina. The 1998 etching is Mary Heilmann’s 21st Century Fox. The vase on the credenza is Untitled by Laura Letinsky from the 2022 “Preparing for Flowers” series.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Second Bedroom The Callimaco lamp by Ettore Sottsass was produced by Artemide. The 2012 watercolors are by Neal Tait.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
The Alcove “Mary’s is the only work I have ever bought,” says Morgan, sitting beneath Heilmann’s Geometric Spin (2021) in the nook by the kitchen.
Photo: Annie Schlechter
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the March 23, 2026, issue of
New York Magazine.
Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now
to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage.
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the March 23, 2026, issue of
New York Magazine.
Sign Up for the Design Hunting Newsletter
Design editor Wendy Goodman takes you inside the city’s most exciting homes and design studios.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice