The 'Hidden' Legacy of SOM's Furniture Designs
Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: Hidden Furniture Masterpieces 1950-1991 is on display at LuisaViaRoma's New York boutique through April. The exhibition presents dozens of pieces of 20th-century furniture designed by architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), alongside related photographs, drawings, and ephemera.
Think mid-20th-century modern furniture and most likely the names Charles and Ray Eames, Herman Miller, and Florence Knoll come to mind, not Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Indeed, Gordon Bunshaft, Davis Allen, and other architects at SOM did design chairs, desks, and other items of furniture, but they were predominantly bespoke pieces created for Inland Steel and other SOM buildings. As such, the pieces never received mass production and are therefore not as famous as the similarly modern furnishings sold by Herman Miller and Knoll. Thanks to David Rosenwasser and Jeremy Bilotti, architects and co-founders of the Rarify platform for collectible furniture, anyone browsing the clothes at LuisaViaRoma can also enjoy an exhibition of SOM's furniture, even sitting on a few of the pieces. World-Architects stopped by the boutique to take in the exhibition and provide some firsthand commentary for the photos that follow.
Walking into LuisaViaRoma at 1 Bond Street in New York's NoHo, visitors first see a display with furniture designed by architects from SOM, including the Italic Desk (1958) designed by Gordon Bunshaft for General Fireproofing, as well as furniture that was owned by SOM architects. (Photo: Matthew Gordon, courtesy of Rarify)
The display near the entrance also includes Bunshaft’s personal 1963 Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman in rare all-black, from Travertine House on East Hampton, and the Lounge Chair (1957) David Allen designed for Inland Steel. (Photo: Matthew Gordon, courtesy of Rarify)
There is an obvious synergy between the exhibition that was curated and designed by Rarify co-founders David Rosenwasser and Jeremy Bilotti and the LuisaViaRoma boutique, which was designed by Claudio Nardi Architects and opened in 2024. (Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM)
Claudio Nardi's museum-like design of the boutique makes an ideal host for an exhibition on modern furniture, with the exhibition artifacts often intertwining with the boutique's clothing and other wares. (Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM)
The SOM-designed furniture includes chairs and desks, as well as cabinets and credenzas, including Alexis Yermakov's Electa Series Cabinet (1968, at left) for Stow Davis. (Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM)
A credenza designed by Davis Allen is topped by drawings of the National Commercial Bank (1983) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and sits below a photograph of the same—one of many Esto photographs included in the exhibition. (Photo: Matthew Gordon, courtesy of Rarify)
Alongside the 60 pieces of custom, archival furniture are more than 100 artifacts, including SOM ephemera displayed in vitrines. Bunshaft's architect's seal and Lever House cuff links can be seen here. (Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM)
The exhibition extends to the lower level of LuisaViaRoma, where glass and metal gives way to soft surfaces and earthy colors. (Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM)
A seating area in the lower level features a Sears Tower Coffee Table, designed by Bunshaft and Allen, and four Club Lounge Chairs designed by SOM's Charles Pfister for Knoll. (Photo: Matthew Gordon, courtesy of Rarify)
A long display on the lower level features a morphology of the chairs designed by Nicos Zographos, who worked at SOM under Bunshaft before establishing his own eponymous design company. He died in 2024 at the age of 93. (Photo: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM)
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: Hidden Furniture Masterpieces 1950-1991 is on display at LuisaViaRoma (1 Bond Street, NYC) from February 10 – April 30, 2026.
