Both trained as architects, Carrie Norman and Thomas Kelley founded the design collaborative Norman Kelly in 2012. They call themselves “furniture appropriators” who believe “architects have designed enough chairs” and have confined themselves to impersonating venerated styles of the past. In their “Young Americans” pieces, two well-known styles—Chippendale and Federal—meld together; they have created an armchair which subtly impersonates a roll top desk like those popular after the American Revolution (lot 51) as well as a fixed tilt-top mirror table in which the reflective surface of the polished mahogany functions as a mirror (lot 52). The designers claim, “like impersonations, our objects are furniture-like; doubles who cause style, type, and function to change places with each other.”