Issue 14
ISSUE
STORY TYPE
AUTHOR
13
BOOK REVIEW
November 25, 2024
A Mind-Body Experience of Architecture, Delivered in a Photo
by Marianela D’Aprile
13
PERSPECTIVE
November 18, 2024
Seeing Chinatown as a Readymade
by Philip Poon
13
PEOPLE
November 11, 2024
The Place of the Handmade Artifact in a Tech-Obsessed Era
by Anne Quito
13
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
November 4, 2024
How a Storied Printmaker Advances the Practice of Architecture
by Diana Budds
12
PEOPLE
October 21, 2024
Sounding Out a Better Way to Build
by Jesse Dorris
12
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
October 7, 2024
What It Means—and What It’s Worth—to Be “Light”
by Julie Lasky
12
PERSPECTIVE
September 23, 2024
Redefining “Iconic” Architecture and Ideals
by Sophie Lovell
12
PERSPECTIVE
September 9, 2024
Surrendering to What Is
by Marianne Krogh
11
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
August 26, 2024
Sometimes, Democratic Design Doesn’t “Look” Like Anything
by Zach Mortice
11
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
August 19, 2024
What Does Your Home Say About You?
by Shane Reiner-Roth
11
BOOK REVIEW
August 12, 2024
Is Building Better Cities a Dream Within Reach?
by Michael Webb
11
PEOPLE
August 5, 2024
The Value of Unbuilt Buildings
by George Kafka
11
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
July 29, 2024
Future-Proofing a Home Where Water Is a Focus and a Thread
by Alexandra Lange
11
BOOK REVIEW
July 22, 2024
Modernist Town, U.S.A.
by Ian Volner
11
PEOPLE
July 15, 2024
Buildings That Grow from a Place
by Anthony Paletta
10
URBANISM
June 24, 2024
What We Lose When a Historic Building Is Demolished
by Owen Hatherley
10
PERSPECTIVE
June 17, 2024
We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things
by Deb Chachra
10
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
June 3, 2024
An Ode to Garages
by Charlie Weak
10
PERSPECTIVE
May 28, 2024
In Search of Domestic Kintsugi
by Edwin Heathcote
10
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
May 13, 2024
The Perils of the Landscapes We Make
by Karrie Jacobs
10
PERSPECTIVE
May 6, 2024
Using Simple Tools as a Radical Act of Independence
by Jarrett Fuller
9
PERSPECTIVE
April 29, 2024
Why Can’t I Just Go Home?
by Eva Hagberg
9
PEOPLE
April 22, 2024
Why Did Our Homes Stop Evolving?
by George Kafka
9
ROUNDTABLE
April 8, 2024
Spaces Where the Body Is a Vital Force
by Tiffany Jow
9
BOOK REVIEW
April 1, 2024
Tracing the Agency of Women as Users and Experts of Architecture
by Mimi Zeiger
9
PERSPECTIVE
March 25, 2024
Are You Sitting in a Non-Place?
by Mzwakhe Ndlovu
9
ROUNDTABLE
March 11, 2024
At Home, Connecting in Place
by Marianela D’Aprile
9
PEOPLE
March 4, 2024
VALIE EXPORT’s Tactical Urbanism
by Alissa Walker
8
PERSPECTIVE
February 26, 2024
What the “Whole Earth Catalog” Taught Me About Building Utopias
by Anjulie Rao
8
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
February 19, 2024
How a Run-Down District in London Became a Model for Neighborhood Revitalization
by Ellen Peirson
8
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
February 12, 2024
In Brooklyn, Housing That Defies the Status Quo
by Gideon Fink Shapiro
8
PERSPECTIVE
February 5, 2024
That “Net-Zero” Home Is Probably Living a Lie
by Fred A. Bernstein
8
PERSPECTIVE
January 22, 2024
The Virtue of Corporate Architecture Firms
by Kate Wagner
8
PERSPECTIVE
January 16, 2024
How Infrastructure Shapes Us
by Deb Chachra
8
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
January 8, 2024
The Defiance of Desire Lines
by Jim Stephenson
7
PEOPLE
December 18, 2023
This House Is Related to You and to Your Nonhuman Relatives
by Sebastián López Cardozo
7
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
December 11, 2023
What’s the Point of the Plus Pool?
by Ian Volner
7
BOOK REVIEW
December 4, 2023
The Extraordinary Link Between Aerobics and Architecture
by Jarrett Fuller
7
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
November 27, 2023
Architecture That Promotes Healing and Fortifies Us for Action
by Kathryn O’Rourke
7
PEOPLE
November 6, 2023
How to Design for Experience
by Diana Budds
7
PEOPLE
October 30, 2023
The Meaty Objects at Marta
by Jonathan Griffin
6
OBJECTS
October 23, 2023
How Oliver Grabes Led Braun Back to Its Roots
by Marianela D’Aprile
6
URBANISM
October 16, 2023
Can Adaptive Reuse Fuel Equitable Revitalization?
by Clayton Page Aldern
6
PERSPECTIVE
October 9, 2023
What’s the Point of a Tiny Home?
by Mimi Zeiger
6
OBJECTS
October 2, 2023
A Book Where Torn-Paper Blobs Convey Big Ideas
by Julie Lasky
6
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
September 24, 2023
The Architecture of Doing Nothing
by Edwin Heathcote
6
BOOK REVIEW
September 18, 2023
What the “Liebes Look” Says About Dorothy Liebes
by Debika Ray
6
PEOPLE
September 11, 2023
Roy McMakin’s Overpowering Simplicity
by Eva Hagberg
6
OBJECTS
September 5, 2023
Minimalism’s Specific Objecthood, Interpreted by Designers of Today
by Glenn Adamson
5
ROUNDTABLE
August 28, 2023
How Joan Jonas and Eiko Otake Navigate Transition
by Siobhan Burke
5
OBJECTS
August 21, 2023
The Future-Proofing Work of Design-Brand Archivists
by Adrian Madlener
5
URBANISM
August 14, 2023
Can a Church Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis?
by Alex Bozikovic
5
PEOPLE
August 7, 2023
In Search of Healing, Helen Cammock Confronts the Past
by Jesse Dorris
5
URBANISM
July 31, 2023
What Dead Malls, Office Parks, and Big-Box Stores Can Do for Housing
by Ian Volner
5
PERSPECTIVE
July 24, 2023
A Righteous Way to Solve “Wicked” Problems
by Susan Yelavich
5
OBJECTS
July 17, 2023
Making a Mess, with a Higher Purpose
by Andrew Russeth
5
ROUNDTABLE
July 10, 2023
How to Emerge from a Starchitect’s Shadow
by Cynthia Rosenfeld
4
PEOPLE
June 26, 2023
There Is No One-Size-Fits-All in Architecture
by Marianela D’Aprile
4
PEOPLE
June 19, 2023
How Time Shapes Amin Taha’s Unconventionally Handsome Buildings
by George Kafka
4
PEOPLE
June 12, 2023
Seeing and Being Seen in JEB’s Radical Archive of Lesbian Photography
by Svetlana Kitto
4
PERSPECTIVE
June 5, 2023
In Built Environments, Planting Where It Matters Most
by Karrie Jacobs
3
PERSPECTIVE
May 30, 2023
On the Home Front, a Latine Aesthetic’s Ordinary Exuberance
by Anjulie Rao
3
PERSPECTIVE
May 21, 2023
For a Selfie (and Enlightenment), Make a Pilgrimage to Bridge No. 3
by Alexandra Lange
3
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
May 8, 2023
The Building Materials of the Future Might Be Growing in Your Backyard
by Marianna Janowicz
3
BOOK REVIEW
May 1, 2023
Moving Beyond the “Fetishisation of the Forest”
by Edwin Heathcote
2
ROUNDTABLE
April 24, 2023
Is Craft Still Synonymous with the Hand?
by Tiffany Jow
2
PEOPLE
April 17, 2023
A Historian Debunks Myths About Lacemaking, On LaceTok and IRL
by Julie Lasky
2
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
April 10, 2023
How AI Helps Architects Design, and Refine, Their Buildings
by Ian Volner
2
PEOPLE
April 3, 2023
Merging Computer and Loom, a Septuagenarian Artist Weaves Her View of the World
by Francesca Perry
1
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
March 27, 2023
Words That Impede Architecture, According to Reinier de Graaf
by Osman Can Yerebakan
1
PEOPLE
March 20, 2023
Painting With Plaster, Monica Curiel Finds a Release
by Andrew Russeth
1
PERSPECTIVE
March 13, 2023
Rules and Roles in Life, Love, and Architecture
by Eva Hagberg
1
Roundtable
March 6, 2023
A Design Movement That Pushes Beyond Architecture’s Limitations
by Tiffany Jow
0
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
February 7, 2023
To Improve the Future of Public Housing, This Architecture Firm Looks to the Past
by Ian Volner
0
OBJECTS
February 7, 2023
The Radical Potential of “Prime Objects”
by Glenn Adamson
0
PEOPLE
February 20, 2023
Xiyadie’s Queer Cosmos
by Xin Wang
0
PEOPLE
February 13, 2023
How Michael J. Love’s Subversive Tap Dancing Steps Forward
by Jesse Dorris
0
SHOW AND TELL
February 7, 2023
Finding Healing and Transformation Through Good Black Art
by Folasade Ologundudu
0
BOOK REVIEW
February 13, 2023
How Stephen Burks “Future-Proofs” Craft
by Francesca Perry
0
ROUNDTABLE
February 27, 2023
Making Use of End Users’ Indispensable Wisdom
by Tiffany Jow
0
PEOPLE
February 7, 2023
The New Lessons Architect Steven Harris Learns from Driving Old Porsches
by Jonathan Schultz
0
PERSPECTIVE
February 7, 2023
The Day Architecture Stopped
by Kate Wagner
0
OBJECTS
February 7, 2023
The Overlooked Potential of Everyday Objects
by Adrian Madlener
0
ROUNDTABLE
February 7, 2023
A Conversation About Generalists, Velocity, and the Source of Innovation
by Tiffany Jow
0
OBJECTS
February 7, 2023
Using a Fungi-Infused Paste, Blast Studio Turns Trash Into Treasure
by Natalia Rachlin
Untapped is published by the design company Henrybuilt.
PEOPLE
11.11.2024
The Place of the Handmade Artifact in a Tech-Obsessed Era

American Studio Craft legends Wendy Maruyama and Tom Loeser weigh in.

Two abstract colorful works of art resembling chairs, one on the ground, and one folded up hanging from the wall
Tom Loeser, “Folding Chairs” (1989). (Courtesy Superhouse)


Can a chair be more than a place to sit? Might a cabinet offer more than storage? In the hands of Wendy Maruyama and Tom Loeser—celebrated artists, educators, and protagonists of the American Studio Craft Movement—furniture transcends function and becomes a catalyst that provokes, perplexes, and ultimately delights. Teeming with the post–World War II crafts movement’s playfulness and hand-hewn experimentation in abstract sculptural forms and nontraditional techniques and materials, their one-of-a-kind pieces confound our relationships with objects and one another, by design.

Maruyama and Loeser are nothing short of legends in the realm of woodcraft. Maruyama, 72, is among the first women in the United States to pursue woodworking as a profession. Loeser, 68, is renowned for impeccably engineered furniture pieces that toe the line between function and dysfunction. Both of their work has been exhibited widely and is included in the collections of major museums around the world.

Longtime friends, the two have influenced generations of makers over the course of their 30-odd-year tenures at San Diego State University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, respectively. Now retired from teaching, they’re back in their workshops and making pieces for “Colorama,” a joint exhibition—their first together—opening at New York’s Superhouse gallery on November 14 (through January 11, 2025).

Stephen Markos, the gallery’s founder and curator, says that the duo’s sustained experimentation in “art furniture” is thrilling to witness. “They’re complete vanguards in this field,” he says. “Having them create these new bodies of work lets us see where they are in the arc of their long careers that are still going. I’m interested in what they’re interested in now.”

It turns out that Maruyama is still very much obsessed with purposeful niches. She’s currently working on a triptych of partitioned cabinets to house items like “bottles of perfume, tequila, jewelry, or medication,” as she suggests. And Loeser is ever fascinated with how chairs shape power dynamics. “I’m interested in how seating can organize, influence, and structure social relations,” he says, citing a series of whimsical double rocking chairs that require two people to stay balanced, and a public bench where sitters must negotiate a moving backrest.

Ahead of their New York exhibition, I spoke with Maruyama and Loeser about their tools, teaching, and the place of the handmade artifact during a tech-obsessed era.

Square wooden vanity with built-in picture frame at the top holding an image of a woman applying eyeliner
Wendy Maruyama, “Inspired by China Vanity” (2006). (Courtesy Superhouse)


ANNE QUITO: What do younger generations need to understand about craft? Are there universal skills gleaned from the act of making things by hand?

WENDY MARUYAMA: Craft is central to all types of making, not just wood or textiles. There is craft in cooking, painting, sculpting; anything that is “made” is craft. One of my former students and fellow woodworker just bought a house and planted all native plants in her yard. She’s learning to extract color pigments from them and is making her own inks and colors for art making. That is craft.

TOM LOESER: As culture becomes more technological, the original “digital” skills embedded in craft are becoming rarer, and thus more valuable. There is insanely inspirational creativity in the electronic realm, but a different part of your mind is engaged when figuring out how to build a piece of furniture. The troubleshooting and problem-solving in the workshop often involves trying a certain tool or technique, and then adjusting as needed. There is a very direct feedback loop from the hand to the visual result. This offers a different sort of satisfaction and reward.

The special set of craft skills is also fully transferable to non-craft realms. Knowing how to make things and how to solve challenges with hand/brain skills is a special skill set to have in your toolbox.

AQ: It struck me that the American Studio Craft Movement began during an era of mass production, which is somehow akin to the current era of mass creation propelled by the rise of generative artificial intelligence. How do you feel about AI’s promise, or encroachment, in the arts?

WM: I don’t know enough about AI as it could pertain to craft, for the same reason I don’t understand NFTs. If I can’t touch it, hold it, or use it, what is it?

But as far as digital tools go, when they first came out, it was kind of a big deal. Artists were using these computer-assisted machines to “carve” objects that would otherwise be so time-consuming and hard—and the result had that “wow” factor, too. But now I have grown to the point that I see the CNC machine or the laser cutter as simply a means to an end. It’s a time-saver.

TL: When I first started doing woodworking, I was worried that crafting functional objects wasn’t a very relevant or important activity in contemporary culture. Why was I doing it, and why was I enthusiastically teaching these archaic skills? However, as most everything became more digital, craft and making things by hand became more unusual, and thus, more important.

How AI will change the creative arts is evolving crazy fast. It feels like AI may be a huge change that will permanently alter sectors of the creative world. But if it follows the same path as other recent electronic innovations, it will finally evolve into another tool in the creative-arts toolbox. Like any tool, it still needs to be used well, and the critical capabilities of skilled artists are still going to get far superior results.

Tom Loeser, “Scythe by Scythe” (2016). (Courtesy Superhouse)


AQ: I’m curious about your relationship with your primary tools—your hands.

WM: It’s funny that you ask this. At my relatively youthful age—ha—I am finding that I don’t have the dexterity that I used to. I was also born with a touch of cerebral palsy, which sometimes affects my motor control and involuntary movements, but I think working with my hands has actually kept that in control. I found that the more you use your hands or body, the better.

But one can always adjust. I can’t carry around a three-quarter inch thick sheet of plywood by myself anymore, but I am working with lighter and thinner materials. When I wanted to make a life-size elephant head [for the 2017 exhibition “Wendy Maruyama: The wildLIFE Project” at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design], I used thin sheets of jelutong, a very light hardwood, and string to tie together pieces to make the large form. I was able to move the thing around without any help because I could just fold it up and carry it. Maybe someday, when I can’t really use the tools like I used to, I’ll be like Henri Matisse and cut colored paper in bed.

TL: When it works well, the hand and brain build on each other. The brain has a partially formed idea, then the hand offers up 3-D possibilities, and a conversation starts. Also, I get stuck a lot, usually because I’m unsure if an idea is worthwhile. Hands can get things going again. Sometimes it might just take spending a day or an afternoon doing something repetitive and satisfying in the workshop. It might be carving or painting or a joinery experiment that nibbles around the edges of the current stumbling block. It might be not directly connected, but it still offers some lateral movement that ends up being helpful.

AQ: What role did teaching play in your practice?

WM: One of the things I really loved about challenges from students is that they would come up with designs that, at first glance, I would say, “That’s impossible. It breaks all the tenets of what woodworking should be.” Then they would say, “Why not?” And I would step back and think, Yeah, why not?! Then we would think of a way to make it work.

Teaching also kept my finger on the pulse of what was going on in the field and made me stay on top of the latest in the design, fine arts, and craft. I am grateful for all of that.

TL: Teaching is drinking from a firehose of ideas, questions, techniques, and exposure to both unfinished and resolved work. This contrasts completely with working solo in my own studio, looking at the current project day after day. A teaching day is exhausting, but it is also a stimulant that makes the next chance to get into my own studio more special and charged. To be honest, I think I might have gotten bored just going to my own studio and being stuck with myself all day.

A kind of curious mental carryover from teaching sometimes shows up when I’m developing an idea or a design. I ask myself what sort of grade would I give my project if I wasn’t the maker, and instead a student submitting it for a class project. If it is drifting down towards a C+, maybe it needs a rethink or a full tear-down and redirect. One of the core goals of teaching is to cultivate a self-criticality and an ability to combine the spontaneous parts of the creative practice with an analytical eye and an intellectual dialogue. That core critique process is a super valuable tool to bring to my own studio work.

AQ: During a time when we’re challenged to have fewer and better things, can you tell me about a piece of furniture you treasure most?

WM: Growing up our family was sort of poor, so we always had second-hand furniture and there is nothing really notable about what we had. But I had an aunt who had a great style, and in the 1950s she had a butterfly chair, which I thought was so cool. I also remember her rattan sofa and chair set that had this Hawaiian-type fabric with fringe—so cool!

As far as furniture I made, I don’t own any of my favorite pieces. The ones I do have and like the most are the blanket chests and cabinets. I have so much stuff, so these things are just filled to the gills with things I managed to collect over the past fifty years.

TL: I have a chair made by Brian Boggs at the first Furniture Society conference in 1997 in Purchase, New York. Brian built the walnut chair over the three days of the conference, then auctioned it to benefit the Furniture Society.

It is a simple walnut stick chair with some beautiful bent parts, and wonderful proportions and details. Looking at the chair, one might not expect it to be all that comfortable, but there is a magical moment whenever I sit in the chair, even after owning it for twenty-seven years, when it just fits perfectly. I sit on this chair multiple times every day, and every time I admire its blend of  function with a resolved and understated aesthetic.

Black chair with very long back, the top of which is shaped like Mickey Mouse ears
Wendy Maruyama, “Mickey Mackintosh” (1981). (Courtesy Superhouse)


AQ: Thinking of each other’s bodies of work, what piece of furniture would you like to own?

WM: Without a doubt I have to say the chest of drawers with a ton of drawers in it [called “Multiple Complications” (1995)]. The number of drawers is one thing, but the colors in Tom’s work are so fantastic too. I’ve always loved that piece. It’s a piece I can stash a lot of stuff in!

TL: I’ll take a full set of “Mickey Mackintosh” chairs (1981), please. Anyone studying furniture-making will, at some point, discover Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s amazing chair designs. They are a real problem because there is no possibility in the world that you could out-Mackintosh Mackintosh to design a chair that can compete with the proportions, striking form, and line quality of his work.

Yet Wendy’s “Mickey Mackintosh” finesses the situation through a sublime and humorous mash-up of reverence for the art-historical brilliance of Mackintosh and her love for popular culture, especially as filtered through the worldview of Southern California. “Mickey Mackintosh” looks simple, but it’s not. It can only be the creation of an artist with Wendy’s big-picture perspective of how seemingly disparate elements and inspirations can coexist and cohere to make a totally new statement.


Maruyama and Loeser will talk about the work in their Superhouse exhibition “Colorama” with Untapped’s editor-in-chief, Tiffany Jow, on Friday, November 15, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Index (120 Walker Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013). Visit the event website to learn more and to RSVP.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.