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Nitush-Aroosh takes stainless steel to Moscow

The Delhi-based studio explores reflection, distortion and changing perspectives across two exhibitions

05 Oct 2026

Stainless steel is currently suffering from a severe case of internet gentrification. On social media, design accounts are obsessing over “chrome plates” and polished metal interiors, rebranding the utilitarian material as something avant-garde. For anyone from an Indian household, the irony is glaring: what the internet has discovered is simply the everyday steel thali that has populated Indian kitchens for generations.

But for Delhi-based design studio Nitush-Aroosh, stainless steel isn’t a fleeting internet aesthetic to be mined; it is an ongoing study in distortion. Since 2022, brothers Nitush and Aroosh Mahipal have worked with the metal to create fluid furniture and objects that warp, reflect and respond to their surroundings. This work by Nitush-Aroosh recently travelled to Moscow, where 3L Gallery presented it across two contrasting environments.

Photography courtesy of Nitush-Aroosh

The first was Invisible Rooms, an immersive exhibition in August organised by 3L Gallery in collaboration with WoL Magazine. Housed inside the historic Moscow International Commercial Bank on Rozhdestvenka Street, the exhibition transformed the building into seven distinct spaces, with Nitush-Aroosh presented in the Room of Tranquillity. The centrepiece, the Tronco Bench, stood against dark wood panelling, parquet flooring and classical detailing.

Inspired by the geometry of tree trunks, its fluid stainless-steel form turns the surrounding architecture into part of the work, reflecting and distorting fragments of the historic interior across the metal. The contrast between the building’s static history and the metal’s shifting reflections was the core element of the presentation. As Nitush-Aroosh explains, “The architecture, light and works around them became part of the experience, constantly changing how the forms and surfaces were perceived.”

Photography courtesy of Nitush-Aroosh

The Moscow presentation continued in September, when 3L Gallery participated in the 14th edition of Cosmoscow, held from September 4 to 6 at the Timiryazev Centre. The Glimmers exhibition brought together works that engage with reflections, shadows, shifts in light and changing perspectives. It became a playground for Nitush-Aroosh’s reflective stainless-steel forms, whose polished surfaces turned into active participants by capturing the movement and light at the fair.

For Nitush and Aroosh, the two exhibitions showed how the same steel behaves differently in response to its surroundings. “Having our work presented in Moscow through Invisible Rooms and Cosmoscow allowed us to experience the pieces in two very different contexts,” they reflect. “Seeing the pieces respond to these different environments was an important part of the experience for us.”

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