Maria Yee Inc

Maria Yee is a California contemporary furniture design studio established in 1988 with a focus on wellness, material, and craft. Maria, the studio's eponymous founder, began her design journey in the early 1980s in Beijing, where she studied classical Chinese joinery with a master craftsman who restored furniture for the Forbidden City. Throughout the exploration of antique furniture, she was amazed by the creativity and the craftsmanship of solid hardwood joinery. The three-dimensional interlocking techniques would enable architecture with wooden structures lasting for thousands of years. Though Maria began with traditional work from the Ming dynasty, in the following three decades she developed her own distinct design style that drew on classical Chinese roots. In parallel, she would redefine and reengineer the joinery techniques, grow to operate her own factories, and nurture her own design studio. All elements matter at Maria Yee – from responsibly managing forests, fostering new growth to ecologically produced luxurious leathers to meticulously hand forged metal pulls. The brand works hard to sustainably source quality materials and to apply insistently honed techniques to breathe new life into classical craftsmanship.