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Art Nouveau Desk with Gallery and Backdesk

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Over the years, many people have responded positively to the Art Nouveau Desk that I first designed and built in the early 1980s. This desk was built on speculation, but was acquired shortly thereafter by a gentleman who has become a lifelong supporter and patron of my work. In the interim years, clients have looked at this original desk and requested that the scale or the woods be changed, or that certain adjustments or amenities be added. We are quite happy to comply with any and all design challenges.

This particular client ordered two desks, the Art Nouveau Creative Writing Desk for himself, and this Desk with Gallery for his wife and business partner. While he used his smaller desk as a platform for his laptop, this much larger desk was really a functional office with file cabinets and additional storage and organizational capacity in the attached 'backdesk' area. This 'backdesk' serves as a connected station, to surround the occupant and provide an additional base for a computer with filing options. As a consequence, it allows for multiple and synchronous managerial tasks.

The gallery was made of walnut as were the lower cases, while the parabola shaped desk top was cherry wood. These are the same woods as the original desk.

In retrospect, this design - while adapted for the needs of very specific clients - can certainly serve as a platform for multiple support functions in a high level office. In that sense, it mimics my much earlier desk for Congoleum International, built before the days of extensive computer integration. As ever, the human needs must always be factored into the design of every piece of furniture, and in both these cases - twenty-five years apart - the human interface is the foundation of the design solution.