Visit Primitive

Four Floors on Jefferson Street

Primitive occupies four floors and 35,000 square feet at 130 North Jefferson Street in Chicago’s West Loop: antique to modern furniture, artifacts, textiles, lighting, jewelry and fine art from over 100 cultures, set out as rooms rather than aisles.

Sacred paintings and Japanese woodblock prints, African masks, Buddhas from Tibet and Nepal, and Chinese lacquered cabinets share the floors with furniture from Ralph Lauren Home, AERIN and Oly Studio. A Kuba textile runs the length of a dining table; petrified wood tables stand on a Moroccan rug; a Chinese scholar’s rock sits on a contemporary console.

“Cultural objects tell stories; and in each story a simple message is found—all cultures are the same, we just express ourselves differently.” — Glen Joffe, owner

The First Floor and the Five Elements Library

African tunics hang at the entrance, opposite leather seating by Oly Studio and cases of jewelry by Lou Guerin beside old tribal silver. Antique Chinese jade and gemstone jewelry are close by.

The Incense Room holds Primitive’s own Agar and Sandalwood incense. Beyond it, a path of 1,000-year-old stone floors leads to the library.

The Five Elements Library is a custom room laid with stone floors from an ancient Chinese village, its hand-carved walls worked with earth, water, fire, wind and metal motifs. Shelves of Spirit Spouse figures stand among the books, and a Ralph Lauren Writer’s Chair sits beside an antique Chinese table.

The literature covers the art, antiques and peoples found throughout the showroom: bronzes, ceramics, terra cotta, baskets, erotica, jewelry, prints and textiles, along with interior design, contemporary art, architecture, fashion and photography. Many of the books are for sale.

The Second Floor: The Buddha Room and One Raj Place

Full room settings of designer furniture and lighting open the floor. A Kuba textile laid as a table runner picks up the engraved motif of a dining table; quartz crystals hang from a chandelier above a crystal-laden Chinese gongshi; two petrified wood tables stand on a Moroccan Giant White rug.

The Buddha Room is calm and low-lit. Buddhas and statuary from Tibet, Nepal, China, Thailand and India stand together in it. Outside, a large black lingam from India waits for water to be poured over its polished surface.

At the rear of the floor, One Raj Place is a Maharaja’s apartment. A pair of Oly Ariel chandeliers, cast in opaque resin after Edwardian crystal, hangs over the main room. In the next, a Ralph Lauren Marie chandelier of rock and lead crystal lights Chinese celadon crackle ware in an AERIN bookcase, beside plein air landscapes by Brian Sindler. The Puja Room holds drawings by Bob Meyer and Indian miniature bronzes from the 19th century and earlier.

The Ante Room and the Meditation Room continue the same register: carved Indian arches, stone underfoot, African masks hung near contemporary paintings, designer furniture set among ethnographic art.

The Third Floor: Oly, Prints and Textiles

The Oly space is French industrial: a steel floor, a wire-glass doorway of the kind found in a Paris bistro, and a Dogon mask from Mali facing Flynn lounge chairs in “dragon gray” leather. The Faline library table stands on hoofed legs under a French copper lamp, near a Mark Westervelt painting, Beijing glass vases, a Mongolian landscape rug, indigo Mossi pillows, Tanzanian figurative sculpture, Tibetan armor and a pair of Lega masks.

The Paintings, Prints and Drawings Department shows Kuchi-e Japanese woodblock prints. Nearby, prehistoric knapped blades are mounted on a French Art Deco salt-blasted console, and a bronze of Milarepa sits on a 200-year-old Chinese Buddha stand. The Textile Department holds hand-knotted rugs, tribal trappings and Shoowa cloth panels. The Saturday Salons with the Juliani Ensemble are held on this floor.

The Fourth Floor: Collectible Home

The whole fourth floor is Collectible Home, a division of Primitive that sets designer furniture beside fine art, ethnographic objects and antiques. It carries the complete line of Ralph Lauren Home furniture, lighting and gifts, with AERIN and Oly Studio, and holds a lighting gallery, a gift gallery, a fabric sample room and a work room for interior designers.

The floor is laid out as a penthouse. A Chinese spirit stone stands in the foyer. In the dining room, the Ralph Lauren Duke dining table runs its full ten feet over an antique Persian Heriz rug, ringed by eight Duke chairs; the bookcases hold Indonesian shipwreck vessels, Chinese scholar’s rocks, ceremonial wine cups from the Congo and French bronzes.

In the study, a Langham desk sits on a rug pieced from Kurdish tent bands. The bedroom keeps a soft palette around the Heiress bed. Under a large skylight in the living room, the Desert Modern sectional carries pillows made from Kuba cloth, the Duke bar opens its gull-wing doors, and 13th-century Chuccu tablets from Peru stand in brass and mahogany bookcases.

For Interior Designers

The Stalls by Primitive x Design 329

On the top floor of Design at 329, the multi-dealer furniture and decor warehouse at 329 West 18th Street, Primitive keeps 2,500 square feet of its own: tribal art and antique jewelry, ethnographic objects, textiles and rugs, fine art and contemporary design, drawn from across Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East. The full Primitive catalog is available through The Stalls, with the room to set out a piece properly and a freight elevator for anything large.

The Stalls is open Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6pm, with on-site parking. It is a fifteen-minute walk from the Cermak–Chinatown Red Line stop and ten minutes from the Chinatown water taxi. For questions, call 312.575.9600.

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