Designing furniture that will be equally at home in kids’ rooms, affordable housing projects and ritzy summer homes may seem like a schizophrenic undertaking. But Chicago architect Peter Landon, whose work includes projects in all of these domains, has come up with a remarkably solid and engaging line, thanks to his efforts to fulfill the needs of these three groups. He has dubbed the line Knothead.
Landon’s pieces emanated from details of his architectural designs. “They were simple built-ins worked into nooks and crannies of my projects, and eventually pulled out as free-standing furniture,” he says.
First came pieces for his own children, then a whole collection to furnish an SRO (single room occupancy) building in Humboldt Park, and finally the same sort of stuff for his high-end contemporary summer homes.
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“It’s furniture that can work in many settings because the pieces have such straight-forward simplicity,” he says. “The design comes from multiple sources.”
Clearly, the Prairie School furnishings born in Chicago decades ago have had a strong influence on Landon. The pieces in the Knothead collection are stocky, boxy, comfortable and beautifully embellished, punctuated with cutouts that do double duty as door or drawer pulls.
Prices range from $95 for a fixture to $750 for an armoire; there are 16 pieces (including tables, chairs, couches, shelving units, armoires, dressers, lighting fixtures and mirrors). All are made of sturdy slabs of birch and can be ordered in custom sizes. Call 312-988-9100 for buying information.