Kadist Reading Room 2011

I was commissioned by Joseph del Pesco, director of the Kadist Art Foundation's San Francisco space, to design and fabricate furniture for their Reading Room, a program that featured a growing collection of international art publications made available to the public. In addition to displaying up to a hundred publications for browsing, the Kadist Reading Room also provided coffee and a place to sit, read, and converse. Because the space is small with limited storage, and used for multiple functions the furniture had to be compact and easy to rearrange and store.

I designed a set of lean-to displays and a collapsible A-frame for the publications, and a set of tables and benches with scissoring legs that folded flat. I decided to juxtapose those forms with materials I associated with traditional libraries: hardwood, upholstery, and brass fittings. The original design also called for folding chairs and braided rugs that were never realized.