When DLN partner Erik Lindström moved his rug showroom from West Adams to Hollywood, a modest lease grew into a full-scale build-out. Never one to adhere to the traditional rug gallery stereotype of piles of stacked carpets, he tapped member Luis Fernandez for a fresh design befitting his style and the new space. Together they created a moody, multifunctional destination inspired by Milanese Brutalism and complete with a listening room, enviable midcentury furniture assortment, and a deeply personal art collection. As members prepare to visit the space on Luis’s Behind-the-Scenes tour, we chat with them about how it all came together.
HADLEY KELLER LLOYD: Let's start at the beginning. Erik, what drew you to this location?
ERIK LINDSTROM: I was on West Jefferson in West Adams for about eight years, and I realized it was too much of a destination. In LA we're all driving all the time, so any chance to minimize that goes a long way, especially for designers shopping for their clients. It's hard to find a one-stop-shop neighborhood. Blackman Cruz and JF Chen were trailblazers here, and over time I saw more and more brands I identified with moving in.
I grabbed the first space I could find that resonated with me, and it was less than half of what we have now: a back room with a long, claustrophobic hallway and a not-so-sexy entrance…My lease said that if the gallery next door ever gave notice, I'd have the right of first refusal. They gave notice two weeks after I moved in. So it was instantly a much bigger project than I'd anticipated, and I needed help.
HKL: And that's where Luis came in.
EL: Enter Luis. The impetus for the whole space was what we'd done in New York. We'd seen the success of flipping the script on the showroom idea, of transforming a space to create a different shopping experience.
LUIS FERNANDEZ: The question became: How do you take the New York version, add to it, and turn it into the LA version of the brand? It's what I call architecture as branding, or branding as architecture.
The two spaces we were combining had very different aesthetics. One had been a gallery, so everything was wiped clean and boarded up. The other had exposed trusses and ceilings. Creating openings between them shaped the whole wayfinding, that sense of discovery as you move through the showroom.
HKL: The aesthetic draws on brutalism and a lot of 1970s influence. How did that rise to the top?
LF: That's really what we bonded over: our love of that era and that type of vintage furniture.
EL: The juxtaposition between contemporary rugs and vintage pieces worked so nicely in New York, which was our guinea pig. People walk in and ask whether the furniture is for sale. Sure, anything's for sale for the right price, but really it's there to complement what we're doing, to make the space feel layered, where each piece has a story. That includes the art.
HKL: That's a perfect segue: I don't think I've ever been in a design showroom with such an interesting art collection. Where did it come from?
EL: I've collected from a young age. My uncle was a fairly well-known artist from Seattle, and a few of his pieces are in the showroom. He worked in abstract expressionism, a lot of it from the late '70s, so it was an easy match. I paired his work with blue-chip artists like Alex Katz and Keith Haring, and with a painting of my own, which I've since given away to friends who loved it. That one was sitting in the closet. We were trying to fit paintings to each wall, and Luis said, "Let me look back here," and pulled it out.
LF: It was amazing that you already had such a collection. And some pieces were new additions. Erik, you were at your uncle's house over the summer, sending me pictures: What about this one? What about that one?
EL: For me, one of the most important things was making the space an expression of who I am, and Luis captured my style and personality in everything he created. The art was one more way to express myself.
HKL: Luis, how do art collections factor into the way you envision a room? Do you design around them, or treat them as part of the color story?
LF: On this project, we knew which walls would be art walls, but we didn't have specific pieces assigned. It was during installation that we started pulling things out and placing them, while keeping in mind that the rugs themselves are works of art. It became almost a formal study: which painting worked in which room, with which rugs, in which position on the wall. It all came together in the install.
HKL: Erik, your father was an architect, and you worked in interiors before this. Does that background shape your approach to design, and how you collaborate with other creatives like Luis?
EL: It's always a healthy challenge when I work with another designer. Given my background, they have to embrace the collaborative effort that's going to happen, because I will have opinions no matter what. It also shapes how I design rugs. I design with the designer in mind. I think of each rug as having five quadrants, and creating interest in each part allows many different designers to use it in different ways without taking away from the design.
HKL: Some of the best work seems to come from being pushed out of your comfort zone. Was there something unexpected that came out of working together that you're really happy with?
EL: Luis pushed me in the best of ways. He has an architectural mind, so he really pays attention to sight lines and does something more unexpected than the average. Take the wood portals, those Carlo Scarpa–inspired layered stacks of wood. I said, "Let's just do a pyramid." He said, "Yes, but no," and offset them in a way I never would have thought of.
LF: Erik, remember when I assumed we'd keep the listening room's entrance where it already was, and you said, "No, let's rotate it"? We moved the entrance off the main space instead of the foyer. That meant more cost, more scope, more everything, and you were aware of that. But you knew it would be a much better space. In retrospect, it would have made the foyer feel very different, too.
HKL: And the listening room wouldn't feel as special. There's that sense of discovery when you come around the corner. You're in a rug showroom; you're not expecting a listening room.
LF: You can be a designer and an interior architect and create amazing things, but so much comes down to the client: their visionary outlook, letting you do your thing while setting the pace for what they want. That's especially true of a branded space. Erik had that vision. He gave me the canvas and set the brief so we could create what we created. You don't get that with every project.
EL: For me, it's about creating a brand first and a space second, a place where designers feel, "This is where I want to shop, and this is where I want to bring my client." Where the end user feels comfortable and part of the project in a really unique way. That's rare to find. It's a small industry, and we have the opportunity to create a wow factor. I wanted to flip the script, and it's working great so far, thanks to Luis.
HKL: It's definitely a wow factor. That's the beauty of collaboration.
This story is from Issue 10 of The Quarterly. Click here to see the full issue.
