Every so often, you come across a place whose very reason for being is just to make people happy. One such place we stumbled across is The Egg House, an uber-colorful, Instagram-friendly egg themed pop-up located at 195 Chrystier Street. Yes, you heard that right, it’s egg-themed.
“The Eggventure Awaits,” the space pronounces on its storefront where you’ll see a pastel colored universe of egg-themed objects, often the wrong size. An egg carton with huge eggs you can get into, a miniature shopping cart. Then there’s a yellow and white ball pit styled as a swimming pool. Written on the wall: “Last one in is a rotten egg!” Each of these are designed as separate multi-sensory installations that flow between one another like a house. A lower level garden (with egg swing) and a secret room offer a contrast to the colorful first floor. There’s even egg-themed food.
The central character of The Egg House, beyond its visitors, is Ellis the Egg, another oversized egg who literally has a bedroom in the back of the first floor. She is an “ambitious eggling” who arrived to New York City’s Lower East Side, like many others, with big dreams. She offers her own insecurities and shares her loneliness of living in a city hoping to become part of something greater. In the bedroom you’ll see videos of Ellis the Egg in New York City parks, like Washington Square Park.
The anonymous founder of The Egg House has an obsession with brunch, the manager of the space, told us on a visit, and saw eggs as a common ingredient in brunch across cultures. The mission statement goes further: “We believe in the familiarity and universality that eggs bring to people, therefore we created an imaginary place where people can momentarily escape to and share the love of eggs.” The pop-up is designed by creatives who graduated from NYU, Parsons, SVA and Pratt Institute.
There is a very unique, deliberately paradoxical sense of randomness combined with a considered, stylized aestheticism. It is clearly one part art project, but one that plays to the millennial masses and its desire for Instagram-friendly spaces. For this author, who is obsessed with wrong sized objects, she was literally drawn by a force beyond her power to enter The Egg House.
The Egg House will be in New York City until June 27th and will then move to Shanghai next. You have to purchase tickets online in advance to enter ($18).
Michelle is the founder of Untapped New York and the author of The Art Spy (HarperOne, forthcoming) Secret Brooklyn, Secret New York Hidden Bars & Restaurants, and Broadway. michelleyoungwriter.com
