LIMN Opens Los Angeles Showroom  

It is the fourth West Coast showroom for the retailer, joining outposts in Seattle and Sacramento.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 1/28/2008

San Francisco-based LIMN, which bills itself as North America’s largest retailer of modern furnishings, further validated its bragging rights with the recent debut of a new 5,000-square-foot showroom in Los Angeles.

It is the fourth West Coast unit for the store, which was founded in San Francisco by CEO Dan Friedlander in 1981 and relocated 10 years later to a 40,000-square-foot space near the San Francisco Design Center. Branches in Seattle and Sacramento followed.

Located in a former set design warehouse near the intersection of La Brea Avenue and Beverly Boulevard, LIMN Los Angeles follows the lead of its predecessors by combining high design furniture with contemporary art. Gracing the entryway is Moraine, Zaha Hadid's Bordeaux-colored biomorphic bench, which stands in stark contrast with Jun Ueno's glass and steel Magic Box installation.

The showroom also features Harry Siter's series of gravity-defying tables in zinc-finished maple and bronze and Luca Sacchetti's La Culla swing in fiberoptics and faux-fur lights. Finnish artist Ritva Puotilea, previously commissioned by the likes of Nikita Khrushchev and Charles de Gaulle, contributed Scent of Lemon, a suspended textile sculpture.

As one of the first showrooms in the United States to offer contemporary art from China, LIMN has annually exhibited Chinese artists since 1997. LIMN L.A. is no different, with its stable of Gao Brothers photography and paintings by Ming Ren and Sheng Qi.

In addition to proffering lines such as Flou, Ingo Maurer and Kartell to consumers, LIMN also serves the architecture and design communities through its LIMN Contract and LIMN Design Studio divisions.

From top: Zaha Hadid's Moraine bench and Jaime Hayon's black ceramic tables greet visitors in the entryway of LIMN's new Los Angeles showroom. A Sheng Qi acrylic on canvas presides over Piero Lissoni's Bubble Rock chair in grey wool.

Images courtesy of LIMN