The Fifth Avenue Snowflake returns to the streets of New York. This year, the installation highlights St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®, one of the world’s leading institutions for the research and treatment of life-threatening diseases in childhood. As a symbolic element of New York’s urban culture, the Snowflake draws attention to the hospital’s work and forms part of a shared initiative that supports its mission through targeted philanthropic efforts. Since its premiere in 2005, the Snowflake has marked the beginning of the holiday season at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street and has become one of the most festive light installations in Manhattan’s public realm. With a diameter of seven meters and a weight of approximately 1,500 kilograms, it serves as a monumental anchor within the dense urban environment. Nearly 16,000 Baccarat crystal prisms refract the light of more than 400 LEDs, giving the structure a floating, almost immaterial presence. This interplay of technical precision, optical refinement and poetic effect is characteristic of the Ingo Maurer brand. This year’s presentation is made possible through the support of the Fifth Avenue Snowflake Foundation for Humanity, the Fifth Avenue Association and the Stonbely Family Foundation, longstanding patrons of this New York landmark.

At Ingo Maurer, light is never just functional—it is always an experience and a reflection of the familiar. For the 3daysofdesign event, the team presented a deep blue wooden box at the Alice Folker Gallery in Copenhagen, filled with new designs and classics from Ingo Maurer’s lighting collection, as well as pink packing chips that gently cascaded to the floor when the box was opened. Was it careful staging or mere coincidence? In this setting, the new luminaires Shhh!, Jasna Kuchnia and NALUM were unveiled. Each of them poses its own questions about the function and perception of light. Whether it’s a light bulb under headphones, stacked porcelain plates that begin to glow, or curved glass tracing the movement of water—these three designs all show how poetic light can be when it is freed from familiar contexts.

From 18 to 20 June 2025, Copenhagen will once again become a hub for international design brands, creatives and design enthusiasts as part of the Scandinavian design festival 3daysofdesign. We’re delighted to be taking part this year with an exhibition at the Alice Folker Gallery. On display are three of our latest creations: NALUM, Shhh!, and Jasna Kuchnia. Each of them reflects our approach to working with light – not merely as a functional element, but as a medium for poetry, emotion and attitude. On Thursday, 19 June 2025 at 10:30 am, we warmly invite you to our Morning Talk: “Playfulness & Irony in Modern Art & Design”. Axel Schmid, Head of Product and Project Design, will be in conversation with Bruun Rasmussen about the role of humour, disruption and lightness in contemporary design. The exhibition is open daily throughout the festival from 10 am to 6 pm at Alice Folker Gallery, Esplanaden 14, Copenhagen.