Architectural Digest | The Haas Brothers Put Their Delightful Madness on Display in a New Los Angeles Studio

June 4, 2026

Simon and Nikolai Haas discovered two favorable auguries when they first explored the site for their new studio in North Hollywood. Built in the late 1940s and early ’50s during the nascent days of the aerospace boom in the San Fernando Valley, the industrial warehouse had more recently been home to a company that manufactured neon signs. “We knew we had to have it when we found out this was where they made the Circus Liquor sign from Clueless,” Simon recalls, referring to the creepy 1960s neon clown that presides over the parking lot where Alicia Silverstone’s indelible Cher gets mugged. “Inside, there was a big cardboard cutout of Patsy Stone smoking a cigarette with a bottle of Stoli,” he adds, referencing Joanna Lumley’s beloved character on Absolutely Fabulous. “That was another good omen.”

 

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Architect Chet Callahan strikes a pose on the studio’s ubiquitous sage-green shelving.

 

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Don Lickles, a snail sculpture fabricated of marble and glass

 

ChAmanda Lear a chandelier of bronze and handblown glass

Ch’Amanda Lear, a chandelier of bronze and hand-blown glass

 

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Simon (top) and Nikolai Haas with Door Than This, a solid walnut portal with octopuses on one side and walruses on the other; the title riffs on Roxy Music’s “More Than This.”

 
 
To translate their conceptual and pragmatic imperatives into three-dimensional reality, the Haases turned to Chet Callahan of LA-based Chet Architecture, whose forte—as evidenced by his own family homes—rests in projects that nurture community and collaboration. “Simon and Niki asked for a new typology, a space flexible enough for exhibitions, classes, offices, dinners, dance parties, and, of course, production,” Callahan explains. “It had to accommodate a lot of different experiences.”
 
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Walls of glass blocks facilitate the spread of natural light.

 

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Simon (left) and Nikolai Haas with a totem fabricated by Czech artist Martin Janecký at the Pilchuck Glass School

 

A heat lamp modulates the viscosity of a wax pot.

A heat lamp modulates the viscosity of a wax pot.

 

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The studio includes a dedicated gallery with walls of glass blocks.

 

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An interior view of one of several wood-framed work sheds with walls of translucent polycarbonate

 

 
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Nikolai Haas with a wax Specialized View-Finder sculpture that will be cast in bronze

 

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Medium Sloan, a floor lamp clad in hex tiles with coral-form glass fixtures, stands in front of one of architect Chet Callahan’s work sheds. Potted plants buoy the impression of a surreal garden.

 

The lofty studio can accommodate monumentally scaled creations.

 

Like so much of the brothers’ creative output, the fanciful quality of the architecture masks a deep conceptual rigor—there is a method to the delightful madness. “Film plays a huge part in our aesthetic. The studio feels beautiful and cinematic but at the same time clean and organized,” Nikolai notes, reeling off a list of auteur inspirations that includes Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dario Argento, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Pedro Almodóvar. “From our roof you can see the water tower on the Warner Bros. lot and the roller coasters at Universal. Disney is right down the street. This is our own dream factory,” Simon affirms. “You feel like you could not be anywhere else but in LA, in our studio, in our world.”