Michael Boyd: PLANEfurniture

Edward Cella Art & Architecture presents its first exhibition of contemporary furniture that advances the gallery’s unique focus on 20th and 21st century architects and designers. The exhibition also represents the debut of PLANEfurniture, an innovative suite of modern furniture created by noted designer and collector Michael Boyd. Inspired by the pioneers of modern design, from Gerrit Rietveld and Rudolph Schindler to Jean Prouvé and Donald Judd, the PLANEfurniture collection attains perfect proportions and a simple, functional beauty.

The distinctive character of PLANEfurniture is founded in the modernist principles of function and form reinterpreted for today with a simple elegance and economy. Grounded by an extensive and intimate knowledge of the history of modern furniture, Boyd adapts and refines the chair, table and desk, creating altogether new forms that are as rational as they are timeless; livable as they are aesthetically pleasing; and comfortable as they are adaptable.

Designed and built by hand in Los Angeles, PLANEfurniture is sustainable and affordable. Constructed of harvested, salvaged, or recycled woods by local craftsman, each piece is composed of a few elements, assembled to achieve an interplay of shapes and angles. Ensuring a universality of use, PLANEfurniture is comprised of four systems: PLANKseries, WEDGEseries, BLOCKseries, and RODseries, each logically adapting its central tenet to functional solutions for indoor or outdoor use. Each piece in the collection may be customized by wood, color and size, and will furnish a room, a patio, or an entire house.

In explaining his inspiration Boyd states, “PLANEfurniture is intended to appeal to all who seek universal solutions to age-old design problems. It is ultimately about trying to reconcile style with logic, passion with discipline.”

Architect Mark Lee notes, “After decades of collecting, studying and being immersed in the scholarship of modern furniture; Michael Boyd is creating furniture of his own. When looking at the piece made of rudimentary planes, one can sense and deduce their historical lineage while remaining wholly original, and originality that evolved though erudition. PLANEfurniture is of our time and of all time”

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue documenting the collection with essay by noted design critic Michael Webb and designed by Ph.D, A Design Office, www.phdla.com.

Michael Boyd is a Los Angeles based designer, writer, and collector of vintage modern design. He is the principal of BoydDesign, a consulting firm for the restoration and preservation of modernist architecture, and has supervised the restoration of homes designed by Craig Ellwood, John Lautner, Paul Rudolph, Oscar Niemeyer, Richard Neutra, and Rudolph Schindler among others. Boyd curated and designed the installation of the architecture and design section of the exhibition, Birth of Cool, at the Orange County Museum of Art, and his personal collection was featured at SFMOMA in an exhibition entitled, Sitting on the Edge: Modernist Design from the Collection of Michael and Gabrielle Boyd. He serves as an advisor to several museums and institutions regarding modern design and architecture, and regularly lectures and contributes a quarterly column for MODERN magazine.

Exhibition Program:

In Conversation: Michael Boyd with Michael Webb
Saturday, May 12, 2012/ 4:00 PM
Join noted design writer and critic Michael Webb as he leads a conversation with designer Michael Boyd about the inspiration and logic behind PLANEfurniture.

Michael Webb writes on modern architecture, design, and travel. He is the author of twenty-six books, most recently Modernist Paradise: Niemeyer House, Boyd Collection (Rizzoli) and Venice CA: Art + Architecture in a Maverick Community (Abrams). He travels widely in search of new and classic modern architecture and contributes to magazines around the world. Michael lives in the Neutra apartment that Charles and Ray Eames once called home.