Boy, Oh Boym!

Edited by Sheila Kim -- Interior Design, 12/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Who'd ever think of using plumbing parts as a flower vase? Constantin and Laurene Leon Boym. This innovative husband-wife team has been reinventing everyday objects since Constantin Boym founded Boym Partners in New York in 1986. Since then, the industrial design studio has made a mark in numerous genres—including a 1994 exhibition design for New York's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, housewares for Alessi in the same year, and an award-winning Vitra showroom for NeoCon 1999 in Chicago. In 1996, the Boyms even designed a best-selling Swatch with domestic icons standing in for numerals. The first museum exhibit devoted to the pair's playful work, "Oh Boym! A Sideshow of Design," is on view at the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington State. Designed by the Boyms themselves, the installation sheds light on their sources of inspiration via such objects as a prototype pink chaise, stacks of porcelain, and a wall clock constructed of adjustable antennae. January 25– April 13; 425-519-0770; bellevueart.org.