Contemporary Refinements

You can barely open a high-end shelter magazine without seeing a project by Shelton, Mindel & Associates; editors love the firm’s sumptuously minimal aesthetic. While the firm has frequently had its furniture designs fabricated for particular jobs, Knoll Studio is introducing Shelton Mindel’s first line of production pieces. “We love what Florence Knoll stood for,” says Lee Mindel, specifying her drive to create functional items that have a voice of their own. Even though it’s quite comfortable, the SM lounge furniture is cubic enough to appear as if it were hewn from a single block of limestone. “The side chair,” Mindel explains, “celebrates what wood can do that nothing else can. It’s reduced to an absolute minimum. You can’t take anything more away or it will fall down.” Still, in simplicity you often find great power. Mindel says they intended the line to provide architectural integrity in spaces that may lack any architecture to speak of.