Vessel USA Inc. was founded in 1998 to revive stunningly simple planters and other ceramic designs that brought acclaim to the Architectural Pottery Collection, a Los Angeles company founded in 1950 by Max and Rita Lawrence. Prominent mid-century LA architects such as Richard Neutura and Pierre Koenig favored the pottery line for spare, geometrically ordered residential gardens and commercial buildings. The Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited pieces as early as 1951.