Jerome Byron Reflects on the Subtle Influence of a Not-So-Subtle Skateboard Deck
The Los Angeles–based architect and designer traces his current work back to his high school pastime.
The Los Angeles–based architect and designer traces his current work back to his high school pastime.
What I love about this skate deck is its ambiguity. The colors blur, the shapes are undefined, but there are enough recognizable images in there to capture the eye—almost like an optical illusion. I have it hanging in my studio, and as I’m going about my day, I will usually stop and stare at it at least a couple of times.
I started skateboarding in high school. That’s pretty much all I did—skateboard and work on oil paintings for my portfolio. I kept skateboarding all through college in New York and grad school in Boston. It was only after I moved to L.A. to work at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and eventually launched my own studio there, that I really focused on architecture and put that hobby on the back burner.
Jerome Byron’s skateboard deck, made by NineOneSeven, features an image by Italian photographer and graphic designer Fabrizio Raschetti. "I don’t think of myself as a capital-A architect," says Byron, who founded his studio in 2017. "My career started out in a conventional way, but that’s not my style at all. I like to keep things a little weird. I think this board speaks to that part of me."
Photo: Ye Rin Mok
But you know, it’s funny—I don’t always realize how much of an impact skateboarding has had on me until I see it later in my work. For example, I made some glass-fiber reinforced concrete stools in 2018. I was exploring how to make indoor concrete furniture, something that you don’t see a lot of, when I realized they looked like halved and folded-over skateboards. I think even my love of concrete can partially be traced back to the time I spent in skate parks or on city streets.
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