Bruce Anderson, born in 1926, attended the University of Melbourne before travelling to London in 1949 where he studied furniture design at the Central School of Arts & Crafts. He found work at the Council of Industrial Design and was involved in selecting modern furniture designs for the Festival of Britain. He returned to Melbourne in 1951 and joined the family business, Anderson’s Furniture. There, he advocated for modern furniture, finding space at the rear of the Chapel Street, Prahran store to stock designs by modernist pioneers Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and Fritz Lowenstein. Anderson’s became the place to buy modern design in Melbourne through the 1950’s. Anderson had an affinity with Japan, and starting in the late 1950s he imported Japanese furniture and homewares, showing them in an area of Anderson’s named the Shoji Room. He visited Japan (first in 1961), and later that same year hosted the first group of Japanese architecture students to visit Australia since World War II. Anderson and Robin Boyd socialised in the same circle of designers and architects, and became firm friends, collaborating professionally since at least 1952.

Anderson designed a range of modular shelving units which Robin Boyd featured in The Age Dream Home Exhibition in 1955, and that Max Forbes included in the 1956 Olympic Games exhibition. Bruce Anderson’s bookshelves are also found in the bedrooms of Suzy and Penleigh Boyd at the Walsh Street house. Even while running the growing family furniture business, Anderson remained involved in design and advocacy, serving as President for the The Society of Designers for Industry.