Designer du Jour: Vladimir Kagan

From architecture to textiles to furniture, German-born Vladimir Kagan has been a giant design for more than 60 years. Looking at his shapely pieces, like the amazing jet-age lounge above, it’s easy to recognize his initial training as a painter and sculptor. Kagan eventually studied architecture at Columbia University and in 1947, joined his father, a woodworker, to learn how to build furniture from the ground up.

Over the years, he’s assembled a list of of notable clients that spans the worlds of art, theater, music and fashion, including Marilyn Monroe, Jennifer Lopez, and Giorgio Armani. He calls his interiors approach “interior landscaping”–by moving furniture into the middle of the room, away from walls, he creates space with his soft, organic forms, transforming the ho-him sofa-cum-table setting into high art.

Here’s interior landscaping in action at the lobby of The Standard in LA which features Kagan’s bright pink sofas.

Kagan’s vintage pieces are now collectors’ items. We spotted his Omnibus sectional sofa with original white fabric for $10,500 at, Machine Age.

The book “Complete Kagan – A Lifetime of Avant-Garde Design” (2004) is a tribute to his life and work. If you can’t invest in his modern furniture then this volume makes for plenty of star gazing. Follow his blog, which he writes himself, for updates on his personal life.