Edgy Elegance

The announcement that architect Peter Eisenman and furniture designer Dakota Jackson were collaborating on an experimental showroom for the Pacific Design Center was considered big news in the design world, and also a bit scary.

Both men, based in New York, are known for their restlessness and cutting-edge work, and promised, in press releases, to reinvent the concept of a showroom.

“We developed a space with Dakota that allows his furniture to be seen in a context that is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to both business and home environments,” said Eisenman, in a departure from the usual retail pitch.

And his description of a central, 7,000-pound steel and aluminum canopy perched on angular legs brought to mind the current monster-movie billboard promotion “as big as Godzilla’s foot.”

The reality, which opened last week, is a faceted structure gracefully twisting through space that serves as architectural sculpture, its recessed lighting creating dramatic patterns that enhance the uncluttered lines of Jackson’s furniture.

“It’s very unusual, and it works well,” commented Jeff Daniels, director of the Architecture and Interior Design Program at UCLA Extension. “I know of other architects who have designed stores and showrooms, but this blurs the edges between design and architecture--that’s its strength.”

The project redefines the role of a retail showroom, he added.

“It’s an act of architectural transgression. The traditional showroom is a box full offurniture. What they’ve done is create an architectural event in which the furniture can be displayed. Dakota Jackson deserves credit for having the vision to take such a chance.”

The elegant and erudite Jackson, making some final adjustments to the room last week, acknowledged that the public expectation might have been for something more outrageous.

“It’s true, I’m not a neutral person.” Born into a family of entertainers, he majored in philosophy in college and worked as both a magician and a modern dancer before starting to design furniture.

He’s had celebrity commissions (Yoko Ono and Robert De Niro) for his furniture, which is admired for its sleek architectural craftsmanship and is included in the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the American Craft Museum, both in New York.

Jackson’s fascination with the light and space of the large museum halls of Europe led to his interest in creating a different space for his first showroom outside New York.

“I don’t want something that tells people how to live in their home or office,” he said. “I wanted an artificial relationship to the furniture so that you begin to look at the pieces as designed objects.”

Eisenman’s faceted canopy provides the kind of pressure and release he sought, Jackson said.

“It is somewhat confrontational,” Jackson said. “It almost goes to the ceiling, almost to the wall. It forces an odd relationship to the furniture.”

His new collection, Ocean, was designed in response to the architecture.

“It’s solid, hand-hewn mahogany with upswept tops and heavy legs at odd angles,” said Jackson, who has fine-tuned his showroom down to the background music of Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson and Brian Eno. “From the minute somebody walks in, it slows them down.

“I’ve never pretended that furniture is fine art,” he added. “My point is that the worlds of design and architecture have taken their departure from art. Peter is a real thinker, and we had this ability to talk easily.” And, as an armchair historian, watching the 20th century jerk to an anxious close in the throes of a technological revolution, Jackson wanted “something unpredictable,” he said.

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Eisenman thrives on just that.

“Everyone hears my name and thinks there’s going to be a confrontation with the devil,” the architect said, chuckling, by phone from his New York office. A provocative theorist of architectural deconstructivism, he is known for forcing architectural issues into public discussion. His 1996 Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati, a sharply angled form with walls leaning outward, is still being debated on architectural panels.

Eisenman acknowledged that “I do like to push the boundary” but said he didn’t want to push too far in designing the new showroom. “If we were to be more outrageous in a little space like that, it would become a performance.”

Their idea, he said, was to create an experience that was not familiar but that showed the furniture in a different context.

“It’s not a pie-in-the-face thing, it’s very subtle,” he said. “We wanted to transform it without taking over. I can’t tell you if it works, because I haven’t seen it yet.”

Both men agreed that Los Angeles was the city to stretch their wings. “You drive through L.A. and it’s such a contemporary place,” said Eisenman. “I love New York, but it is a fusty, 19th century place. There’s not even anything like the Pacific Design Center.”

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Indeed, visitors last week agreed that the new showroom seems perfectly suited to the sleek lines of the Cesar Pelli-designed center in West Hollywood.

Bret Parsons, Pacific Design Center director of business development and media relations, pronounces it a benchmark in showroom presentation. In a larger analysis, Parsons views the project symbolically.

“It’s like a metaphor for the improved economy and confirms what’s really going on in Los Angeles,” he said. “We’re enjoying a booming economy that lets people experiment with new ideas in a way they weren’t able to in the past.”