That their designs appear seamless, effortless—even inevitable—is both the intention of architects Peter L. Shelton (left) and Lee F. Mindel and the deception. Every detail of their work—from the floor plan and the materials to the lighting, the furnishings and the artwork—has been carefully analyzed. “We like to think and not style,” Mindel says of the pair’s intellectual approach. “But it should look as if you can’t imagine it any other way.” Perhaps best known for creating sleek Manhattan apartments that reflect their Modernist influences—Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Poul Kjaerholm, Arne Jacobsen—Shelton and Mindel, who head a 14-person firm they established in 1978, have also designed more traditional spaces and in a range of settings across the country and around the world.

What inspires them is not the Modernist aesthetic itself but its impetus to experiment and break down barriers. “We like the idea of space being not so assignable to function, but assigning it as you see fit,” says Mindel. “You don’t have to live the way the Cleavers lived.” Regardless of the setting, the team, whose new ventures include a streamlined sink fitting for Waterworks and furniture collections for Knoll, believe resolutely in the maxim that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is preferable, Shelton remarks, that visitors to their residences, rather than noting a chair or a cabinet, say, “Weren’t you moved by that space?’

Shelton, Mindel

212-206-6406