Johnston Marklee

Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, founders of Los Angeles-based architecture firm Johnston Marklee, are fascinated by the history of furniture as much as that of architecture. Referring to themselves as part of a generation that “vehemently rejected history,” they sum up their view thus: “history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.” Within the lineage of architects designing furniture with Knoll, it’s a fitting maxim. In their work, Johnston Marklee takes a contextual approach that is attentive to the dynamic between a structure, the rooms within it, and the elements within the room—all surrounded by the many dimensions of culture.

“Design is about scale, orientation, and proportion,” says Johnston. “We always like to test that relationship between the body, the furniture and the architecture as a kind of conversation.” The formal design language Johnston Marklee uses to shape that conversation revolves around sculpted forms—how space structures itself into volumes, voids, and curvatures, and how light and shadow animate them. 

Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee founded their architectural firm Johnston Marklee in 1998, and take on projects of varying scales and uses, from cultural and educational institutions to private homes and commercial spaces. These include the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, Texas, the UCLA Graduate Art Studios campus in Culver City, Vault House in Oxnard, California, and Dropbox Global Headquarters in San Francisco, California. 

Their work is collected by international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Architecture Museum of TU Munich. Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 40 awards, including the Richard Neutra Award for Professional Excellence in 2024. A monograph on the firm’s work was published in 2016 by Birkhauser.