He's an icon, and so are his designs

By Christopher Muther, Globe Staff  |  March 26, 2009

Vladimir Kagan's client list reads like an encyclopedia of pop-culture idols: Andy Warhol, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Diane von Furstenberg, Tom Cruise, and Marilyn Monroe are among the glitterati who've purchased Kagan's iconic furniture. When Walt Disney needed to refurnish the House of the Future in 1964, the perpetually ahead-of-his-time Kagan was brought in to redecorate. When designer Tom Ford went looking for sofas to adorn more than 350 Gucci stores, he paid a visit to Kagan. Ford was so impressed with the designer's work that he ended up writing the forward to Kagan's biography.

But Kagan, 81, confesses that he isn't always familiar with his celebrity clients.

"I was [traveling] to Nantucket for Thanksgiving two years ago, and I got a call on my cellphone from Angelina Jolie," says Kagan, who splits his time among Nantucket, Palm Beach, Fla., and Manhattan. "I didn't know who she was. I had never heard of her."

Jolie was calling to commission furniture for her brood, and Kagan quickly researched his new client by renting "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, have since become friends with Kagan, and the couple recently ordered more custom pieces for their sprawling family.

While it is easy for Kagan to name drop when prodded, what he's most excited to talk about is design. His pieces are in the permanent collections of leading museums, including Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Kagan, who will give a talk at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in the South End on Saturday about his 60-year career, is still designing and overseeing reissues of his designs.

"I make furniture for people to sit on and use, I've always thought of this as my major mission," Kagan says. "It has to be functional, and then it has to be beautiful. I'm a great believer in restraining my design to a point where it is functional. A lot of designs these days are good-looking, but they're not comfortable."

We asked Kagan to offer a behind-the-couch look at some of his most important pieces.

"Mr. [Giorgio] Armani saw my furniture and asked if I would make a chair for his restaurant in Italy. Based on the chair we created the tables, the banquettes, and everything. From 1950 to the early 1960s, I did all those organic, sculptural designs. In the mid-1960s I had an urge to change direction. This whole group is very linear. Almost Asian in simplicity. I'm a fan of his clothes and I have a few Armani jackets, but I'm too fat to look cute in them. He designs for a nice skinny body."

"I designed this around 1969, and it became very important in the 1970s. It's the other iconic design concept in my seating group. The beauty of Omnibus is that it's modular. People can move it, reorient it, and reconfigure it. You can sit on the back as well. There is a broad surface that creates an extra perch. I love sitting on the back of furniture, so it's just at perching height. It plays into an interior landscape that allows it to move away from the wall. It really animates a static space."

It was designed in Palm Beach. I was designing new furniture, and I was watching the palm trees in the wind. The palm trees all bent over in one direction with the wind, but they didn't break. If you look at the shape of that chair, everything is swept in one direction in the wind. It's funny how your surroundings can inspire design.

"Francois Roche [of Roche-Bobois] came to me and said 'Vladimir, we've got to have one of your sofas. What can you do for us?' I had to design something that gave them a lot of flexibility, so the Comet has three or four elements that can be combined in different ways. It combines the philosophy of the Omnibus with the philosophy of the Serpentine."

"Barlow Tyrie is a very conservative English company, but I always wanted to do some more outdoor furniture. It took two and a half years to convince them to let me design a collection for them. One of the objections they brought up was, 'You're an old man, what would happen if you die in the meantime?' I said 'If I die, you will have the last designs I've ever made, and it will be twice as valuable.' I think that's what clinched the deal."

"I studied architecture as a young man, and I never built a building. It was such a wonderful challenge. In the meantime the developers lost their financing, so I hope it will get built in my lifetime. The challenge they gave me was 'We want you to design a flower among the weeds,' so I took that as a serious challenge. We even designed the interior, and it will reflect the free flow of the exterior. Of course it means that everyone who lives there is going to have to buy my furniture, because where else are you going to find curvy furniture? It's a cunning thing, isn't it?"

Vladimir Kagan gives a talk at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, 41 Berkeley St., Saturday at 2 p.m. The event is free, but reservations are recommended at 617-585-0284. For more information call 617-363-0405 or go to www.ad2021.com.