Provenance ·  Friction ·  Lived

Acquisition as
Argument.

Taste scales.

usm haller
Fritz Haller

Most collecting happens by accident.

This practice exists because I think it shouldn't.

Every acquisition is a position — defended by provenance, tested by friction, validated only if it gets lived with.

The framework isn't a checklist. It's a filter that lets the right things through and keeps everything else out.

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The Framework
01

Provenance.

Who made it?

Who owned it?

What it survived.

If the chain of custody doesn't hold, the object doesn't enter.

02

Friction.

Anyone can buy an Eames lounge on a Tuesday. The right one — right year, right provenance, right leather — takes longer. I source from estates, studio sales, and listings that disappear in hours.

03

Accumulation.

Every significant object is a collaboration — designer against manufacturer, vision against constraint — where the tension between collaborators is the content. A Burdick desk across from a Kukkapuro places those tensions in conversation. That's not collecting; that's making an argument.

04

Legibility.

Walk into the room and read the argument. Interior architecture, not interior decoration — if the collection needs a docent, it isn't finished.

05

Lived.

Nothing is roped off. The scratch on the dining table is twenty years of dinner parties. That's the point.

The Guiding Principle

The permanent collection.

An Eames lounge is $7,360 new. Your grandchildren will argue over who gets it. A mass-market lounge will be in a landfill before the warranty expires. The difference isn't taste — it's thesis. One decision compounds for decades. The other doesn't survive a move.

Collection Registers
Mid-century design collaboration
Contemporary art & design
Luxury x street
Heritage craft & contemporary design
Independent music & visual culture
Limited & special editions

Start with provenance.