Luke Hughes in the Stukeley Street workshop, c. 1987
Luke Hughes is an English furniture designer specialising in furniture for public buildings including Westminster Abbey.[1]
Career
Hughes was temporarily working as a carpenter on London building sites in 1979 when chosen to lead a design project for kitchen shelving, which led further to the refurbishment of the client's home library.[2] This was the first library project that led to a series of bookcase designs and installations for Inns of Court lawyers.[3] He set up his first company, Bloomsbury Joinery, in 1980 in Lamb's Conduit Street, Bloomsbury.[2]
Workshop in Stukeley Street, c. 1982
Hughes is the founder and CEO of Luke Hughes and Company Limited,[4] which went out of business in May 2024. Luke Hughes’ early output consisted of furniture for the residential market.[2] The same period also saw Hughes’ short-lived engagement with designing for the retail market. This came in the form of the ill-fated Ovolo line of bedroom furniture, originally manufactured by a Birmingham reproduction furniture company, Juckes, and sold through Heal's, Liberty's and John Lewis.[citation needed] The line's failure to gain a foothold with the consumer forced a change to the targeting of institutional clients.[3] To that end, Hughes brought architect and former managing director of Cotswold Furniture Manufacturers, Gordon Russell, on board.[5]
