Michael and Alexandra Misczynski’s interiors usually work within the context of another architect’s design.

They’ve been influenced by America’s Richard Meier, John Pawson in Great Britain and Axel Vervoordt from Antwerp.  The latter wrote the introduction to their new book from Rizzoli USA, Interiors: Atelier AM, which explores a range of their recent interiors.

“What I call our work is edited,” Michael says.  “It’s not quite Miesian, but less is more is not a bad way to put it.”

He and his wife have practiced interior design together in Los Angeles as Atelier AM for a decade, after he graduated from USC and she from Hamilton College.  He worked in Richard Meier’s office during the final phase for the design of the Getty Center, on furniture for that project and on models with Michael Palladino.

He says their process for design is driven by the architect with whom they’re working and that they tell their clients that a truly great house is still a great house, whether it’s empty or not.   But their finished designs are defined also by the artists whose work they feature – Giacometti, Matisse and Ellsworth Kelly among them.

“We’re not decorators, and we’re definitely not shoppers,” he says.  “We don’t just furnish houses – we detail all the interiors to get it to where we’d like it to be.”

That means moldings, cases, bases, doors, hardware, stone and floor patterns and ceilings as well.  The desired effect is a unity and a holistic effect from all.

“We try to finesse every detail, regardless of what gets dropped in our lap architecturally,” he says.  “Whatever the architectural process is, we want to respect it and build upon it.”

For more on Atelier AM, go to http://www.atelieram.com/

For more on Interiors: Atelier AM, go to http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847838509

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