PHOENIX — The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has partnered with modern children's furniture brand Mod Mom Furniture and toddler furniture manufacturer Little Colorado to launch a line of Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired children's furniture.
The first product to come to market under the new Frank Lloyd Wright Playhouse brand is a play table and chair set for children ages two to six.
The table and chair set is inspired by the plywood furniture that Wright designed for the Usonian homes. Wright's 60 Usonian homes are based on structures he completed after the Great Depression, when potential clients asked him to build a home for their family for $5,000. The original Usonian homes were among eight Wright buildings inscribed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage List in 2019.
In addition to being inspired by Wright's furniture designs, five different graphic designs by Wright can be printed directly onto the Playhouse Table top or left with a natural finish.
The furniture can be ordered through the Mod Mom Furniture and Little Colorado websites as a set of two chairs and a play table for $525, or separately for $290 for the two chairs and $290 for the table.
“We plan to expand retail distribution to premium independent brick-and-mortar stores across North America, and we anticipate interest from museum stores and architecture and interior design professionals as well,” said Bill Hare, one of Little Colorado's founders.
Three other products in the collection are scheduled to launch in 2020, with eight more in development for 2021. The next Playhouse piece, due to launch in May, is a child-sized replica of Wright's origami chair.
The Origami Chair was originally designed by Wright and Taliesin Fellows for the Garden Room at Taliesin West in 1949, as an attempt to design a single piece of furniture using a single piece of plywood in the most efficient way. Adult-sized replicas of the chair are available from Cassina for $3,500 to $5,000, with playhouse versions of the chair selling for under $1,000.
The brand is also developing a wooden playhouse kit inspired by Wright's architecture.
“The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation inspires the world through understanding and experience of Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas, architecture and design,” said Stuart Graff, president and CEO of the Foundation. “Developing a new line of children's furniture incorporating Wright's design principles is a wonderful way to introduce a new generation to beautiful and inspiring ways to live.”
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation chose to collaborate with Mod Mom Furniture and Little Colorado on this project in part because both companies are based in the United States and Little Colorado has demonstrated its commitment to adhering to the Sustainable Furnishings Council guidelines. As a result, all industrial design, product development and manufacturing for the Frank Lloyd Wright Playhouse program will occur in the United States at Mod Mom's Flagstaff, Arizona headquarters, the Foundation's Scottsdale, Arizona location and Little Colorado's 27,000 square foot factory in Denver.
A portion of the proceeds from these Playhouse products will support the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation's mission to preserve Wright's Taliesin and Taliesin West homes for future generations.
