Jonathan Muecke

Jonathan Muecke’s design practice makes the most out of an idea. Much like the seminal Knoll pieces by modernist designers before him, it stems from a preoccupation with materials and their presence in space. For Muecke, “it’s about seeing things, and using things, and remaking things,” he says, “not necessarily inventing things.”  

The furniture and art objects he creates have a simplicity that belies the architectural and artistic theory that underpins them. By often using just a single material and by reiterating an object in various scales and proportions, Muecke’s process of reduction and abstraction functions as a kind of freedom. As a result, his work resists standard classification, instead blurring the lines between design, art and architecture.  

Based in Minneapolis, Muecke is a trained architect. He interned with Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, Switzerland and went on to pursue an art degree at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan before establishing his own practice in Minneapolis.  

In 2011, Muecke made his debut with a solo exhibition at Volume Gallery in Chicago and was commissioned to design the architectural pavilion at Design Miami in 2014. In 2016, he was invited by Maniera Gallery in Brussels to create an exhibition that dialogues with Juliaan Lampens' Brutalist Van Wassenhove House. In 2022, the Art Institute of Chicago staged his first major museum show.  

His work is part of international museum collections, including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the CNAP (Centre National des Arts Plastiques) in France, and the Vitra Design Museum in Germany.