Philadelphia Through a Creative Lens

25 June 2026

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Philadelphia built a nation. The designers, architects, and makers working there are proof that the city is still at it and building something else entirely for today’s design landscape.

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Brittany Chevalier

Cast Hall at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is not a neutral room. Surrounded by over 120 plaster casts of the world's greatest sculptures, it is a space that asks something of the people inside it. On June 18, it was the setting for a conversation about what Philadelphia makes, and why it matters.

ArchiPro Americas Editorial Director Brittany Chevalier McIntyre moderated the discussion for Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty, bringing together six of the city's most distinctive creative voices before an audience of approximately 75 top-performing real estate agents from across the country.

Held as part of America's 250th anniversary celebrations, the conversation, titled "Philadelphia Through a Creative Lens: Design, Development & What's Next," opened with a reminder that Philadelphia has always been a city of makers. Long before "maker culture" became a talking point, this was the city where furniture makers, silversmiths, printers, and textile workers built the material fabric of a new country. The Declaration was signed here. The Constitution was drafted here. And the instinct to make something real, something lasting, never left.

Two hundred and fifty years on, that instinct is very much alive, and the panelists on stage were proof of it. Adam Kamens of Amuneal, Liz Galbraith of Galbraith & Paul, furniture designer Tiarra Bell of Bellafonté Studio, Mona Ross Berman of Mona Ross Berman Interiors, Kate Rohrer of Rohe Creative, and Tim Lucci of Peter Zimmerman Architects each spoke to clients and projects that span the country and reach well beyond it. What they also shared was a sense that something is shifting in Philadelphia itself: a design scene that is coalescing, where makers, designers, and architects are finding each other and building something together that the city has not quite had before.

The conversation touched on craft, material, and what it means to do work that lasts; on the economics of renovation and the expectations luxury buyers bring when relocating from larger markets; and on what it means, in 2026, to build a nationally recognized practice without leaving the city you love. Social media has changed the calculus entirely. You no longer have to be in New York to reach a client in California.

For the Sotheby's agents in the room, it was a timely reframe: Philadelphia is not a secondary market waiting to arrive. It is a design city that always was one, and is finally being recognized as such.