Plate I
Where There's Smoke… (series)
Maarten Baas · burnt oak, epoxy · 2004 · commissioned for MOSS
The defining MOSS commission: a 25-year-old Dutch graduate's furniture, literally set on
fire and preserved mid-char. Murray saw it in Paris and had the solo show open within two
months, during ICFF. It made Baas's career and fixed MOSS's reputation as the place that
discovered tomorrow. Baas calls the show his "space shuttle launch platform." A Smoke desk
still sits in Murray's study at Torpedo House.
Zeitgeist
Commissioned
Career-making
Baas's own account — Design Miami/
Plate II
Panda Pob Chair
Fernando & Humberto Campana · plush toy and steel · 2000s
Stuffed pandas welded into an armchair: the Campana brothers' stuffed-animal zoo was peak
MOSS — sentimental materials treated with museum gravity. The Campanas built MOSS's 2005
gallery's signature focal wall of pieced wood fragments, were put up at the Chelsea Hotel "to
contaminate us with the crazy atmosphere of New York," and showed the Panda Chair glowing in
the shop window in 2007.
Iconic
Exhibition
Design Miami/, What MOSS Means to Me
Plate III
Homework: Pinocchio
Studio Job · created exclusively for MOSS · 2007
Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel's bronze, fairytale-gothic cabinet pieces were made expressly
for MOSS, which championed them early in America. A Homework coffee-tin sculpture now lives at
Torpedo House, and a Studio Job bronze stands in the dining room — culinary art for the men
who never cook.
Commissioned
Iconic
Design Miami/ vetted profile
Plate IV
Nymphenburg & Meissen porcelain program
Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg · Munich · sold at MOSS from the 2000s
Murray's favorite studio visit on earth: the Bavarian manufactory where porcelain is still
painted entirely by one artist — "white gold." Putting 300-year-old-technique porcelain beside
plastic bottle openers "caused trouble," he admits: shoppers didn't know which criteria to
judge by. That confusion was the entire point. The bisque Jack Daw still watches over
Torpedo House.
Zeitgeist
High/low provocation
Upstate Diary interview
Plate V
Jongerius at MOSS
Hella Jongerius · Soft Urn (rubber, 1993) · Long Neck & Groove bottles (2000) · monumental floor vase (2002–06)
MOSS gave Jongerius some of her earliest American exposure — including hand-built ceramic
vases produced exclusively for the store, one of which dominates Murray and Franklin's foyer.
Her verdict on what Murray did for her career: "life-changing." The embroidered porcelain bowl
and jug sit on their dining table today.
Exclusive editions
Career-making
Design Miami/, What MOSS Means to Me
Plate VI
Gun Lamps, signed in-store
Philippe Starck · lamp · signed at MOSS · 2005
Starck personally signing his Gun Lamps in the shop — a 2005 moment that captured MOSS's
blend of retail, performance, and provocation. The store didn't just sell design; it staged
its makers.
Event
Photo © Franklin Getchell via Design Miami/
Plate VII
Sottsass, Colombo & the "little gorgeous things"
Ettore Sottsass · Joe Colombo Birillo stools and ashtrays · 1960s–2000s
The founding inventory: Sottsass ceramics (including the infamous ones), Colombo ashtrays,
fetish soaps shaped like the Venus of Willendorf — arranged behind glass like relics. Franklin's
four Joe Colombo Birillo stools, all that remains of the Centovini restaurant, still cameo in
his Zoom background six decades after they were designed.
Founding inventory
Architectural Digest · Design Miami/
Plate VIII
Lobmeyr, Baccarat & Moser glass
J. & L. Lobmeyr · Baccarat · Moser · mouth-blown crystal
Mouth-blown Lobmeyr glassware shelved beside Vitsoe 606 shelving by Dieter Rams — former
MOSS specialist Brent Dzekciorius recalls handling them in the same afternoon as Gaetano Pesce
arriving with works "in his Santa sack." The Baccarat book followed in 2013; the crystal
collection survives intact at Torpedo House.
Connoisseurship
Dzekciorius, Design Miami/ · 1stDibs
Plate IX
Baby Grande Flambe
Maarten Baas · burnt clay · opened MOSS Los Angeles · 2007
Baas's Grandfather clock rendered as flame — the literal opening act for MOSS LA on Melrose
Avenue in 2007. A clock that is permanently exploding: no object better summarizes the store's
ability to make function and catastrophe coexist beautifully.
Iconic
Photo © Franklin Getchell via Design Miami/
Plate X
Kuramata, Morrison & the masters at home
Shiro Kuramata Nara table (1983) · Jasper Morrison Low Pad chair (1999) · Tobia Scarpa Biagio lamp (1968) · Osvaldo Borsani P40 lounge (1957)
The canon Murray lived with: Kuramata's terrazzo Nara table in the bedroom, Morrison's Low
Pad, Scarpa's marble Biagio lamp, and the Borsani P40 Murray sits in for interviews — proof
that the dealer took his own curatorial advice. Everything, at Torpedo House, has a price on
it. Nothing may be touched.
Private canon
Upstate Diary · 1stDibs