Asad Syrkett on Interiors, Identity, and the Human Touch

Asad Syrkett joins What’s Contemporary Now? for a wide-ranging conversation about design as a cultural language and the quiet ways environments shape identity, memory, and access. From a childhood spent moving through New York City’s homes, department stores, and streets, to a new chapter living and working in Milan, he reflects on how early encounters with the built world formed a lifelong curiosity long before he had the vocabulary of architecture or interiors.

Grounded in his background in architectural history and editorial leadership, Asad speaks to why design is never neutral, how interiors hold narrative and emotional weight, and why aspiration today feels less about status than self-knowledge. As attention splinters and taste is increasingly mediated by screens rather than experience, the conversation returns to what endures: craft, context, and the human touch as the most contemporary forces shaping how we live now.

“If you like it, I love it. I’d rather a space reflect real engagement with the self than something copied from Instagram.” - Asad Syrkett

Episode Highlights:

• Living in Milan versus passing through itAsad reflects on the shift from visiting Milan for work to truly living there, and how permanence deepens relationships, curiosity, and cultural exchange beyond the churn of Salone and design week.
  

• A childhood shaped by environments, not fashionGrowing up in Harlem and New York City, Asad became attuned early to how homes, retail spaces, and objects reflect identity, class, and aspiration, long before he had the language for design.
  

• The built world is never neutralFrom department stores to shop windows, he describes how cities teach us, early on, that design encodes power, values, and social difference.
  

• Curiosity as a lifelong engineRaised by a family deeply invested in culture, music, books, and dance, Asad traces how being encouraged to ask questions shaped his editorial and intellectual instincts.
  

• Why architectural history unlocked everythingStudying architectural history at Columbia gave him context and language for instincts formed in childhood, connecting design to authority, religion, economics, and social structures.
  

• A career guided by sustainability of curiosityMoving between journalism, design studios, digital media, and business wasn’t about restlessness, but about building an intellectually sustainable life around design.
  

• Context over aestheticsAs an editor, Asad emphasizes that interiors don’t exist in a vacuum, they are social, political, and emotional artifacts shaped by history, access, and intention.
  

• Access versus upward mobilityHe challenges the idea that design is about “upward mobility,” reframing it instead as access, self-knowledge, and environments that reflect inner growth rather than status alone.
  

• Italy as a culture of makersLiving in Milan has sharpened his appreciation for Italian design’s deep respect for craft, family-run production, and material knowledge passed down through generations.

• What’s contemporary now: the human touchIn a digital, accelerated world, Asad argues that the most contemporary thing is work shaped by human skill, physical effort, and deep commitment to craft, things technology cannot replicate.

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