The Omni-Designer
May 2007
In the 1930s, Hungarian national Paul László (1900–93) joined a group of Modernist architects
and designers who emigrated from Germany to the United States and helped enrich an already flourishing native taste for the moderne. Upon his arrival in 1936, he set up a practice (first as an architect and then a designer), on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills where he catered to a clientele of marquee names such as Cary Grant, Ronald Reagan, Barbara Stanwyck and William Wyler.
His approach was distinctive; each commission was conceived as a total work of art. He would design not just a house but also the furniture, drapes, fabrics, fixtures, rugs and lights. If specialized skills were necessary he would find the most accomplished craftsmen and artisans to execute his concepts.
“People would hire him, go to Europe, and come back six or nine months later to find the paintings on the wall, the toilet paper on the roller and slippers by the bed,” writes Julius Shulman, the famed architectural photographer of California Modernist buildings, in the introduction to a coffee-table book published by the László firm. With increasing fame and success, László accepted fewer architectural commissions, preferring to concentrate on interiors.
While László was deeply committed to making custom pieces, he also designed a small body of commercial furniture. From 1948 to 1952 he worked for the esteemed Herman Miller firm in New York, joining a stable of topflight designers—including George Nelson, Charles Eames and Isamu Noguchi—who were turning out pieces that were mass-produced yet artistically significant. László was more closely associated with the California furniture firm Brown Saltman, but, says Paul Donzella of Donzella 20th Century Gallery in New York, “László never embraced mass production. It was not the way he liked to work. His heart was not in commercial manufacturing. He was very hands-on, greatly preferring custom design, working with the very best craftsmen available to him.”
That is not to say that László avoided commercial projects. He designed notable commercial spaces for Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, several department stores in Los Angeles (Bullock’s Wilshire, Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue, Ohrbach’s) and even a rather elegant Cold War–era bomb shelter for the U.S. Air Force.
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Mahogany-framed club chairs |
His approach was distinctive; each commission was conceived as a total work of art. He would design not just a house but also the furniture, drapes, fabrics, fixtures, rugs and lights. If specialized skills were necessary he would find the most accomplished craftsmen and artisans to execute his concepts.
“People would hire him, go to Europe, and come back six or nine months later to find the paintings on the wall, the toilet paper on the roller and slippers by the bed,” writes Julius Shulman, the famed architectural photographer of California Modernist buildings, in the introduction to a coffee-table book published by the László firm. With increasing fame and success, László accepted fewer architectural commissions, preferring to concentrate on interiors.
While László was deeply committed to making custom pieces, he also designed a small body of commercial furniture. From 1948 to 1952 he worked for the esteemed Herman Miller firm in New York, joining a stable of topflight designers—including George Nelson, Charles Eames and Isamu Noguchi—who were turning out pieces that were mass-produced yet artistically significant. László was more closely associated with the California furniture firm Brown Saltman, but, says Paul Donzella of Donzella 20th Century Gallery in New York, “László never embraced mass production. It was not the way he liked to work. His heart was not in commercial manufacturing. He was very hands-on, greatly preferring custom design, working with the very best craftsmen available to him.”
That is not to say that László avoided commercial projects. He designed notable commercial spaces for Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, several department stores in Los Angeles (Bullock’s Wilshire, Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue, Ohrbach’s) and even a rather elegant Cold War–era bomb shelter for the U.S. Air Force.
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