"Restraint is not part of Diaz's visual vocabulary. His Hutton mirror features 22k gold-leaf spikes, the Sabaudia daybed has wings reminiscent of vintage car fins, and the Jujuy Trastero cabinet features horns. These whimsical improvisations also have a deliberate formality resulting in pieces that Diaz imagines should have existed historically. Designer Ryan Lawson, another admirer, says, "When you see Mike's work it has a sense that it has always been there, like you've stumbled upon some kind of historic relic.""
"The furniture includes Mexican pieces like a William Spratling Butaque chair, an iron-and-stone table from the home of painter and architect Juan O'Gorman, and a chair by the Taxco jeweler Hector Aguilar, alongside European pieces like an 18th-century Venetian mirror that hangs in the bedroom. "People always tell me my look is really layered," Diaz deadpans. "I'm layering because I need a receptacle to put everything. I have a shopping addiction, and I'm kind of a hoarder.""
David Cruz met Mike Diaz nearly 30 years ago when Diaz specialized in rustic, bold, opulent antique furniture and folk art from Latin America and the Mediterranean, supplying designers internationally. Diaz transitioned from dealing antiques to creating his own designs that riff on historic and ecclesiastical motifs. His pieces are theatrical and ornate—22k gold-leaf spikes, wings like vintage car fins, and horned cabinets—yet maintain a formal logic that evokes imagined historical provenance. His Mexico City apartment houses collections from Mexico, Italy, Japan, and South America, including Japanese boro textiles, 1930s Tonalá pottery, and layered furniture spanning Mexican and European makers.
Read at Architectural Digest
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