In the Winter 2026 issue of Metropolis, Lila Allen speaks with Partner Chris Cooper and Head of Product Development Satya Cacioppe to discuss our philosophy of total design and our long history of furniture design. As Allen writes, “Since the earliest days of its 90-year history, SOM has approached design as architecture of a total environment, from structure down to the scale of a chair or light fixture.”

Today, we are bringing that legacy into sharper focus by reactivating our archives and introducing select furniture designs to the market for the first time. Many of these pieces are featured in Hidden Furniture Masterpieces, an exhibition curated by Rarify, which brings decades of overlooked archival furniture, alongside more than 100 artifacts into public view. 

Allen captures the significance of this exhibition: “With Hidden Furniture Masterpieces, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is finally repositioned not only as a producer of landmark buildings, but as a quiet author of one of the most consequential—and overlooked—furniture legacies in American modernism. Presented by Rarify, the exhibition reframes SOM’s interiors and furnishings as a parallel design lineage to the canonical narratives dominated by Herman Miller and Knoll. What emerges is a body of work shaped by architects such as Gordon Bunshaft and his collaborators, where furniture was not an accessory but infrastructure—integral to how postwar corporate America looked, moved, and projected power.”