Wait For It… a blog by Andy Ross

Modernist Furniture

I can remember at six-years-old crafting my first piece of modernist furniture. It was a rocking horse made out of Plexiglass and discarded aluminum tubing. The conceit was that it didn't necessarily "rock."

It was as though a firecracker had gone off in the world of modern design. The MoMA called my work "disturbingly present."

Soon, I discovered molded plywood. It felt like finding a magic world all of my own. Within days, I had built a minimalist living room set inspired by soap bubbles. Mies van der Rohe wrote me a fan letter after having seen it in one of Charles and Ray Eames' filmstrips. I was eight at the time.

However, as with many modernist design child stars, fame took hold too quickly and too hard. Julius Shulman's pictures of my work in Observe & Ponder Magazine made me a household name. My fiberglass and resin piece, Slide Redacted, was the original impetus for Herman Miller’s move into playground equipment manufacturing.

I even had my own catchphrase: "Function demands empathy, form demands sacrifice."

Soon, I found myself partying at Philip Johnson's Glass House. Buckminster Fuller was constantly around, tossing Utopia-through-design hippy girls my way. Drugs, fights, shoplifting drafting materials … For my twelfth birthday I rented out Taliesin and burned it to the ground. (I know---again, right?) My tween life was out of control.

I won't lie---that period marked some of my greatest achievements in object design. Probably a subconscious nod to my own life's downward spiral, my Treehouse with Double Helix Fireman’s Pole drew rave reviews, even from the normally staid Austrians. I was a madman, up until well past dawn on amphetamines, sketching end tables and racecar beds.

But, it's always the same story. I burnt out.

At fifteen, I was asked to redesign the lobby of Lincoln Center. I turned in a scribbled crayon sketch of a Labrador Retriever in a riding helmet and jodhpurs. My parents checked me into rehab.

Some new child designer quickly took my place. I wasn’t jealous; I was tired.

Today, I lead a normal life. I have a beautiful wife whom I met in rehab. (She had been a famous abstract expressionist ceremacist at age seven, so we understand each other.) We have a nice little house and two lovely daughters. I teach Sunday school at the Unitarian church.

Every now and then, I’ll design a storage ottoman for Target. Nothing big or flashy. Just something to keep my hand in the game. I danced with the Design Devil and made it out alive. That’s enough for me.