House of Santal is a new contemporary design gallery and online platform presenting South Asian craftsmanship through a forward-looking lens. The debut exhibition, titled At the Threshold of the Courtyard, showcases one-of-a-kind and limited-edition furniture, objects, and sculptural works by more than a dozen Indian designers bridging legacy craft traditions with contemporary form, providing collectors, designers, and audiences with a unique opportunity to engage with the depth, innovation, and global significance of contemporary South Asian collectible design rarely seen outside the region.

Founded by New York–based designer and curator Raksha Sanikam, House of Santal is a first-of-its-kind contemporary design space dedicated to South Asian craftsmanship, via a physical gallery and an online platform for discovery. Guided by a deep reverence for the heritage of skilled artisans of South Asia, it brings the region’s most compelling voices—both established and emerging—to the forefront of the international design stage. Sanikam’s vision is both ambitious and overdue: to champion the present-day designers, studios, and master artisans whose work has shaped global design culture, yet whose authorship has remained largely unrecognized in the United States.

Taking its name from santalum (sandalwood), a sacred and precious material known as the “gold of the greens” across South Asia, House of Santal celebrates process, provenance, and authorship, situating a heritage that has been honed, perfected, and practiced by artisans over generations within the contemporary design landscape. In building this ecosystem and elevating its artisans and designers, it empowers their craft while helping sustain these traditions for the future. More than a gallery, House of Santal creates new pathways for exchange between South Asia and the international design stage by bridging high-end collectible design, legacy craftsmanship, and contemporary discourse through exhibitions, commissions, and programming.

House of Santal makes its debut in an expansive 8,000-square-foot gallery across Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The space is organized around a nadumuttam or aangan, a central courtyard characteristic of the havelis and chettinad homes of northern and southern India where domestic architecture often functioned as a living gallery. In these homes, thresholds marked transitions between public and private, light and shadow, and object and environment, anchoring the sense of direction and attention through space.

At House of Santal, the courtyard guides the flow of movement throughout the gallery, where a sequence of thresholds leads visitors through distinct vignettes. Each vignette is conceived as a focused curatorial moment, celebrating specific materials, craft techniques, and contemporary design ideas. Together, the thresholds and vignettes create a rhythmic journey through the gallery, allowing objects to be encountered gradually, with intention, context, and pause.

At the Threshold of the Courtyard, the inaugural exhibition spotlights 13 groundbreaking Indian designers and studios, celebrated for their ability to bridge legacy craft traditions with contemporary form and whose practices reflect the breadth, experimentation, and technical mastery shaping the present and future of South Asian design.

Exhibition Highlights Include

• Design ni Dukaan, founded by AD100 India designer Veeram Shah, which operates as a collaborative ecosystem that brings artisans, craftspeople, and designers into close dialogue. The studio works with specialist workshops across India to push historic craft techniques into contemporary expression, treating tradition as a living archive in which each object carries the imprint of many hands. 
• A series of sculptural, handcrafted mirrors by Arisaa, led by rising designer Aashka Desai, whose practice is driven by curiosity—about materials, processes, and the people behind them. Through close collaboration with artisans across rural India, trust, experimentation, and innovation shape Desai’s contemporary interpretations of traditional methods. Trained as a graphic designer, she brings a refined sense of balance, form, and visual rhythm to her practice, resulting in emotionally resonant, narrative-driven objects.
• Sage Living, known for whimsical yet meticulously crafted furniture and objects that reflect India’s evolving design sensibilities. Grounded in material integrity and technical excellence, the atelier’s work forges a deep connection between people and the spaces they inhabit, drawing inspiration from nature, architecture, and cultural memory to craft immersive experiences rather than purely utilitarian forms.
• Architect and designer Karan Desai, whose experimental approach to furniture and object design is deeply informed by his architectural practice. By reinterpreting traditional techniques through a modern lens, Desai produces bold, expressive pieces that unite function and sculptural presence, transforming the environments they occupy.
• Pallavi Goenka’s meditative and intuitive practice, developed through her studio AMH, that draws from nature, emotion, and the quiet poetry of everyday life. Incorporating intricate techniques such as mosaic and hand-textured finishes, AMH reimagines functional forms as future heirlooms, where heritage and contemporary design converge.

The represented artists in Edition 1 include: AMH by Pallavi Goenka, Arisaa, Artisanal Abode, Beyond Dreams, Chacko, Design ni Dukaan, Harshita Jhamtani Designs, Karan Desai, Pieces of Desire (P.O.D.), Rhizome, Sage Living, and Studio Nyn.

Image courtesy of House of Santal