Wow! How can something so simple be so completely wonderful and beautiful?! This is an iconic cylindrical planter by Architectural Pottery of California. In the most iconic color…white. It is monumental in size as was typical of their pots. I can’t tell you which of the wonderful designers who did designs for them did this particular pot. It could have been LaGardo Tackett or Malcolm Leland or David Cressey or John Follis or Rex Goode who all designed iconic monumental work for Architectural Pottery. Just one look at one of their pots and you know it. Almost every California mid-century modern home had one; especially if they were designed by John Lautner or Richard Neutra who used them in most of their modernist homes. Plus, well known mid-century photographer Julius Shulman featured Architectural Pottery’s products in almost every photo he took!
Architectural Pottery was founded by husband and wife Max (1911-2010) and Rita (1919-1999) Lawrence in 1950 after Rita saw the awesome potential of students’ designs at the California School of Art in Pasadena. These were students of LaGardo Tackett who carried out a class project to create designs to fill a void in the home accessories market. Architectural Pottery’s iconic designs were devoid of ornamentation and mostly monumental in scale using geometric forms like cylinders, cones, gourds, and totems. John Caldwell, a former employee of Architectural Pottery was known to say, “just about every significant architectural project of the 1950s had to have an Eames chair and an Architectural Pottery pot in it.” AP had to shut down in 1985 after a fire destroyed the Manhattan Beach manufacturing plant. In 1998 Vessel USA Inc. was founded to revive the beautiful planters and other ceramic designs and created their Architectural Pottery Collection. Never fear the new pots are clearly marked with Vessel USA Inc. so it is easy the tell the vintage from the new even if you couldn’t tell from their beautiful patina that only age and use can affect.
We know you have fallen in love with the simple form and gorgeous matte white glaze on this monumental pot just as we have. Make it yours!!
