PEOPLE

Take five: Harry Nuriev 

In our quickfire question series, we take five minutes with Russia-born and New York-based architect and artist Harry Nuriev to ask about everything from weird foods to where he goes to escape the everyday. 

‘Once dubbed ‘the man designing spaces for the Instagram age’ by The New York Times, Harry Nuriev creates collectible furniture and experimental interiors bursting with colour, where the boundaries between old and new, beautiful and ugly, fashion and furniture design cease to exist.

His sweeping perspective is informed by his nomadic nature: Harry lives between New York, Paris and Moscow, where he graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute and founded Crosby Studios, in 2014. Creativity is everywhere, explains Harry: ‘I get most of my inspiration from art and fashion, not just design… People who are creative, confident in their path, who have significant personal style and a strong opinion about what’s going on in the world.

More recently, Harry’s experimental eye has shifted towards sustainability – from his much talked-about Design Miami 2019 exhibition, to virtual installations that make sustainable design accessible to everyone. For his recent collaboration with COS, Harry was shot on location at ‘one of his favourite places and a constant source of inspiration’, the Alvar Aalto-designed Vyborg Library, St Petersburg. ‘I pay a lot of attention to sustainability in my projects, and lots of them have something to do with upcycling,’ says Harry. ‘It was important to me to find a way to combine my own DNA with the one of COS. I found inspiration by thinking about nature on a very deep level.’

Finding new ways to connect through art and style has been especially important this year. ‘I started appreciating clothes even more than before,’ says Harry. ‘Before 2020, I used to wear things like sweatpants a lot, but when you have to spend six months at home, at some point you really start dressing up and expressing yourself through clothes.’