About the Archive

Arkana Archive is equal parts history museum
and art gallery.

When I began organizing and digitizing our family’s collection of material from the 60’s and 70’s, I was struck by the scope of it all. For nearly two decades, they had companies producing their designs in both Europe and the Americas, for both domestic and large scale customers. But despite their success, both Duncan and Maurice’s work seems to have fallen into a hole in our collective memory.

For Maurice I think a lot of this came from his restlessness; constantly moving from company to company and contractor to contractor doesn’t make it easy for history to follow your exploits. To this day the most common sentiment I see about my grandfather is “Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Where did he disappear to?”. And when I do see his name attached to his furniture, the information included is at best scant, and at worst incorrect.

With my father Duncan, there was an even deeper problem: people didn’t even know he was responsible for his own designs! Part of this is that his name was rarely attached publicly to his designs, even his award winning Orbita. And when it was, like in the case of the US made Zermatt version, there is confusion as to who exactly deserves the credit.

So the Archive began as an effort to set the record straight regarding my father and grandfather’s designs. But the further into the project I got, the more I realized that it was also a chance to share a collection of unique design work with the world again.

In a world of increasingly homogenized design, constantly chasing the ephemera of ‘Mid Century, Scandinavian Modernism’ or ‘Bauhaus, International Style Minimalism’, original ideas are hard to come by. And perhaps I’m biased, but I know that I found a lot to love in their furniture as I was growing up.

I’m sure you’ll find your own favourites among this collection.

-Declan Burke, Manager of Arkana Archive.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The Archive is an ongoing project to document the Burke family’s design work, both then and now!

If you have any pieces from Duncan or Maurice, want to share information or stories, or just want to share feedback on the site, please don’t hesitate to contact us with the form below.