Norman Diekman came of artistic age in the 60s. “It was a wonderful time because all this stuff was happening with Warhol and Johns and Rauschenberg. My ideas have never been baroque.”

Diekman studied at the Pratt Institute and worked in architecture with Phillip Johnson, who gave him “a good start for thinking about simple forms,” Lee Pomeroy, and Skidmore Owings Merrill, where he received “good training in detailing.”. He also worked for Ward Bennett in furniture and product design. “Architecture today has a lot going on, so I think the furniture should be a counterpoint like a period at the end of a sentence.”

Although a born New Yorker, Diekman considered himself an American designer rather than regionally influenced. “Design today is such an international thing. What I think is distinctively American is a direct sort of freshness, straightforward beauty.”