Gingold Living Room End Table (1 of 2)

An early pioneer of modern architecture and interior design in southern California, Rudolf M. Schindler presented a new, austere aesthetic that became synonymous with the region’s progressive culture. Made of veneered plywood, many of his innovative furniture designs can be seen as a microcosm of his larger architectural vision. These living-room end tables, with their crisp, geometric compositions, are iconic examples of Schindler’s avant-garde ideology and meticulous craftsmanship. Born in Vienna, Schindler received his formal training in art and engineering at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. Influenced by the work of Adolf Loos and Frank Lloyd Wright, Schindler came to Chicago in 1914, and four years later Wright hired him to work on a variety of projects, including the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (1915–22) and the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles (1917–20). In 1922 Schindler left Wright’s firm to establish his own practice in Los Angeles, where his commissions were mostly residential buildings. His iconic King’s Road Home (1922) and the Lovell Beach House (1926) set the tone for the experimentation with common building materials that is now typical of many Los Angeles–based practitioners such as Frank O. Gehry and Morphosis, who are reshaping the formal characteristics of architecture.