New York Interior Design Vol. 2 excerpt

VOLUME II JUDITH GURA is professor and faculty member at the New history program. A graduate of Cornell University, she has a Master of Arts degree in design history from the Bard Gradu-

Gura

York School of Interior Design, where she directs the design

ate Center. She has taught at Pratt Institute and FIT, and has

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN 1935–1985

contributed to exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the WhitGura is the author of Sourcebook of Scandinavian Furniture: Designs for the 21st Century; Guide to Period Styles for Interiors; Harvey Probber: Modernist Furniture, Artworks and Design; and Edward Wormley: The Other Face of Modernism. She is a contributing editor for Art+Auction magazine, and frequently lectures about design.

Acanthus Press Visual Library presents worlds of culture, art, and design through images.

ALSO AVAILABLE: New York Interior Design, 1935–1985: Inventors of Tradition (Volume I) Judith Gura FORTHCOMING: New York Interior Design, 1985–2010: Creators of the Contemporary (Volume III) Judith Gura Los Angeles Interior Design, 1935–1985 Jo Lauria

San Francisco Interior Design, 1935–1985 Jo Lauria

VOLUME II

MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Judith Gura

Between 1935 and 1985, the design community in New York was thriving. Inspired by distinguished educators and promoted in style magazines and illustrated books, interior designers acquired elite status and social prominence, often equal to that of their illustrious clients.

When fashion-conscious urban professionals joined New York’s Old World establishment, new modes of urban living evolved.

Along with high-rise apartments, penthouses, and town houses, the downtown loft developed as a new genre for Manhattan luxury living. The challenges presented by these raw spaces led to inventive design solutions and decorative treatments.

New York Interior Design, 1935–1985: Masters of Modernism brings together over 250 photographs of exceptional interiors by practitioners who boldly challenged traditional concepts of design.

Among featured designers are the iconoclastic Alan Buchsbaum, who pioneered such unorthodox concepts as exposed cooking areas, bathtubs out in the open, and was the first to treat old tin ceilings, pipes, and structural beams as decorative elements; the

1935–1985

London Interior Design, 1925–1985 Penny Sparke

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN 1935–1985 MASTERS OF MODERNISM

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN

ney Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

ACANTHUS PRESS VISUAL LIBRARY

incomparable Barbara D’Arcy, whose trendsetting model rooms for Bloomingdale’s electrified the 1960s and 1970s; the color virtuoso Juan Montoya; and the architectural firm Shelton, Mindel, known for elegant minimalist spaces approached with a curator’s eye.

New York Interior Design, 1935–1985: Masters of Modernism is the companion volume to New York Interior Design, 1935–1985:

Front cover: Living room by Steven Holl with Josef Hoffmann red-lacquer platform sofa, table with drawer, and trompe l’oeil geometry in rug, Midtown East apartment, 1983. ©Paul Warchol Back cover: Mirror-walled living room by Juan Montoya with view of Central Park, Fifth Avenue apartment, ca. 1975. Courtesy of Jaime Ardiles-Arce Endpapers: “Straight As An Arrow” from & VICE VERSA, a textile and wallcovering design company founded by Angelo Donghia.

Inventors of Tradition.

Judith Gura ACANTHUS PRESS VISUAL LIBRARY

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN 1935–1985 VOLUME II

MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Judith Gura

Acanthus Press V I S UA L LI B R A RY

Published by Acanthus Press LLC 54 West 21st Street New York, New York 10010 800.827.7614 www.acanthuspress.com

Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify the owners of copyright.

Errors of omission will be corrected in subsequent printings of this work.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in any part (except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher.

Images for this book were obtained with the support of a grant from a publications development fund established by the New York School of Interior Design for publications related to the academic program of the college.

Copyright © 2008, Judith Gura Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gura, Judith.

New York interior design: 1935-1985 / by Judith Gura. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-926494-52-7 (alk. paper) 1. Interior decoration—New York (State)—New York—History—20th century.

2. Interior decorators—New York (State)—New York. I. Title.

NK2011.N48G87 2008 747.09747'10904—dc22 2008010976

ENDPAPERS: “Straight As An Arrow” from & Vica Versa, a textile and wallcovering design company founded by Angelo Donghia FRONTISPIECE: Living room with Art Deco–inspired marble chimney breast, soft seating, Japanese screen, and arced staircase at rear, Upper East Side town house, 1981. Jay Spectre, designer. Courtesy of Durston Saylor

CONTENTS

Preface 6

THE HISTORY 7 THE WAYFINDERS 15 Benjamin Baldwin ……………………………………16

THE SYNTHESIZERS 163 Barbara D’Arcy ……………………………………164 Angelo Donghia ……………………………………174 John Saladino ………………………………………186 Clodagh ……………………………………………200

Ward Bennett ………………………………………26 Alan Buchsbaum ……………………………………42

THE PURISTS 51 Joseph Paul D’Urso …………………………………52 Bray-Schaible…………………………………………62 Bromley Jacobsen ……………………………………76 Patino-Wolf …………………………………………88

THE URBANITES 97

THE ARCHITECTS’ APPROACH 207 Richard Meier ………………………………………208 Gwathmey Siegel……………………………………216 Vignelli Associates …………………………………228 Steven Holl …………………………………………236 Shelton, Mindel ……………………………………244

THE PORTFOLIO 255 Kenneth Alpert, Bentley La Rosa Salasky, Bruce Bierman, Charles Damga,

Melvin Dwork ………………………………………98

Michael De Santis, Jamie Drake, Dede Draper, John Elmo, Forbes-Ergas,

Al Herbert …………………………………………108

Mariette Himes Gomez, Thad Hayes, Evelyn Jablow, Lembo Bohn, Michael Love,

Dexter Design ………………………………………116

Ruth Lynford, Mac II, Emily Malino, Morsa, Tom O’Toole, Orbach and Jacobson, T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Stephen Sills, Robert A. M. Stern

THE SYBARITES 123 Jay Spectre …………………………………………124

Biographies 279

Noel Jeffrey …………………………………………132

Bibliography 288

Samuel Botero ………………………………………140

Photography Credits 294

Juan Montoya ………………………………………152

PREFACE

This volume traces the development of the varied strains of modernism in interior design during the decades following World War II, when the influence of postwar prosperity and explosive growth in the design profession opened the doors to new practitioners, new ideas, and a new aesthetic and equally important, an expanded client base. The combination of a broadened school curricula, iconoclastic design innovators, and acceptance of an architectural approach to interiors all fostered a new generation of living spaces, conceived in New York and interpreted for the rest of the country. As designers grappled with the impact of the International style, they rethought and reinterpreted tradition, first rejecting historicism altogether, and then reconciling with it in creative coexistence.

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THE HISTORY

THE SCHOOLS: CHANGING COURSE F R O M T H E I R B E G I N N I N G S in the second decade of the 20th century to the point at which this volume begins, at about the mid-century mark, New York’s design schools took inspiration from the traditional styles of their European predecessors. Following in the tradition of Parsons, whose graduates were the most prominent of the New York School, fashion called for residential interiors executed in classic period styles, although drawn in increasingly improvisational strokes. That comfortable and somewhat complacent attitude however was soon to change.

In 1965 Albert Herbert, a Pratt graduate who also taught at the school, wrote that most interior designers were not qualified to deal with the architectural character of interiors, but are “generally trained merely in the use of color and fabric and the creation of atmospheric ideas and surroundings,” criticizing them for “overdone window arrangements, excessive wall coverings, difficult floors, and any number of redundant and unnecessary decorative treatments.”i Of course he was not referring to the Pratt curriculum, which since the formation of the interior design department in the 1940s, had taken an architectural approach to the practice.

Another graduate, Joseph Paul D’Urso recalls, “At Pratt we were tearing out walls. . . . we were pretending we were architects.” Both D’Urso and his mentor Ward Bennett were instructors at Pratt for most of the 1970s, when minimalism and the iconoclastic “high-tech” movement was drawing attention to a group of New York designers who were taking their craft in an entirely new direction. These designers and their traditionminded contemporaries understood that the cookie-cutter, boxlike interiors of postwar high-rise construction presented particular design challenges. They lacked the amenities of prewar construction and town houses; unlike those high-ceilinged spaces with classical proportions and architectural details, modern apartments needed illusory devices to make them appear larger and visually interesting, and practical solutions to the problems of limited storage and unbalanced light sources. By the 1970s, the development of residential lofts provided another type of space, requiring an entirely new vocabulary of decorative treatments. These challenges encouraged the development of a modern-oriented sector of the New York School of interior designers. Some found what they needed in their academic training; others conceived ideas of their own.

In 1970 Parsons became a division of The New School for Social Research, and the campus moved from the Upper East Side to its current 7

THE HISTORY

downtown location. This decade saw radical change at Parsons, which had until then maintained its emphasis on “the old-fashioned graces”ii of traditional design; Parsons was pressured to follow the direction of Pratt Institute in adopting a more modern orientation that emphasized architecture. The reversal of position was a seismic change in the curriculum, with some unexpected consequences. Allen Tate, an architect who joined Parsons in 1961, first taught a variety of design courses but in 1970 was named chairman of the department of Environmental Design.iii This new department incorporated interior design, product design, and urban design and was expanded five years later to include architecture and landscape architecture as well.

Under Tate’s direction, the curriculum changed dramatically, virtually upending everything that Parsons had stood for since its founding early in the century. Tate reoriented the focus of the program to emphasize modernist principles, replacing Beaux Arts with Bauhaus, and brought in new instructors, many of them architects. Where students originally had the same instructors across the curriculum, the new program employed educators from a variety of disciplines to teach their specialty. The result was chaotic: Stanley Barrows, a stalwart of the program and the head instructor in design history, left, and others followed. Some students considered the change a disaster, claiming, “We never discussed wallpaper or fabrics; we never did boards,”iv while others were inspired, explaining that “they were all fighting, but we got the best of both sides.”v William Pahlmann, a graduate under the original Parsons model, was one of many critics of the new direction, noting that “if a project didn’t look like one at Pratt, it wasn’t any good”vi and bemoaning the loss of a more rounded program of study.

Tate remained department chairman until 1981.vii Many of the changes he made were later reversed—interior design was reinstated as a separate 8

department in 1992, with the advice of Stanley Barrows, then retired, who was called in to help with its resurrection.viii When Barrows left Parsons in 1968, as the changes were taking shape, he became director of an interior design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Other instructors defecting from Parsons’ new modernist regime joined him, and FIT became one of the institutions offering alternatives for students wishing to study interior design. Founded in 1944 as “an MIT for the fashion industries,” however, the school remained better known, and far more successful, as a training center for fashion designers.

The New York School of Interior Design, too, moved to modernism with the installation in 1972 of Giuseppe Zambonini, an avant-garde Italian architect and designer who succeeded the more traditionally oriented Gilbert Werlé as dean. Zambonini remained for only three years, leaving to establish his own downtown atelier. He was followed by Kerwin Kettler, a Parsons graduate. As the profession grew, the school’s enrollment and facilities continued to expand, though it did not attain the prominence of either Parsons or Pratt. This may have been partly the result of its concentration as a single-major school, or the fact that many of its students took courses out of a general interest in design rather than to enter the profession. This began to change under the presidency of Arthur Satz (1973–1989), when the school earned accreditation and began offering Bachelor of Fine Arts as well as two-year Associate in Applied Science degrees.ix Of course, not everyone believed that modernism was to be admired, or desired. At the 1959 American Institute of Decorators convention in New York, architect Edward Durell Stone warned attendees to “Beware of progress. Progress inevitably means that you sacrifice something good for something less attractive. Don’t be modern.”x He was not joking—and many designers agreed with him.

THE HISTORY

THE TRADE: BUILDING BUSINESS B E G I N N I N G in the late 1950s, the New York chapter of the American Institute of Decorators undertook the task of developing a broader market for its members by organizing special presentations to show off their work. Some of the most interesting of these were arranged in cooperation with developers of the post-World War II modern apartment houses that were proliferating in several Manhattan neighborhoods.

These buildings lacked both the spaciousness and architectural interest of prewar housing. Noted designers were enlisted to create model apartments, concealing their undistinguished layouts and lack of architectural detail with fancy-dress window and wall treatments and glamorous, usually eclectic furnishings, to lure prospective tenants. Designed for the broadest possible audience, these interiors reflected neither the designers’ taste nor innovative style directions, but related publicity made prominent use of the designers’ names. When the Brevoort opened in 1955, the Royal York in 1956, Washington Square Village in 1959, and Gracie Towers in 1960, all advertised model rooms by major decorators, including the ubiquitous William Pahlmann, Melanie Kahane, Ellen McCluskey, Thedlow, and C. Eugene Stephenson. The New York Times duly reported on the events, illustrating several of the interiors and helping draw visitors: as many as 60,000 people were reported to have visited the Washington Square Village apartments during the several months they were on display.xi Design exhibitions had been staged since the 1920s at Midtown galleries and the Bertha Schaefer Gallery, where decorating assumed an artistic and elitist air.xii The profession and its New York members now sought a more general public. National Home Furnishing shows featured both designers’ interior displays and manufacturers’ goods, but other events took on a stronger decorating focus.xiii Leading New York design-

ers were center stage in a series of Decoration and Design shows between 1959 and 1965, sponsored jointly by the local chapter of the American Institute of Interior Designers and the Resources Council. These events took place in either the Park Avenue Armory or the New York Coliseum.

The 1960 edition was proclaimed “the most important decorating show since 1931, when Elsie de Wolfe and Syrie Maugham were riding high.”xiv The third in the series, in fall of 1961, included no fewer than 116 decorated interiors by celebrity designers like Mrs. Henry (Sister) Parish II, Elisabeth Draper, and Jerome Manashaw, all of them intended “to give the public an idea of what designers are doing today.”xv The roster of participants in these events was a virtual “who’s who” of the foremost designers—even if some did avoid them, disdaining the shows’ commercial overtones and the manufacturer-sponsored exhibits. Newspaper reporters conscientiously tried to interpret design trends seen in the displays, but most of the model rooms, like the model apartments, were middle-of-the-road presentations of eclectic decor, with occasional contemporary expressions. Few suggested the creativity and innovation of which the designers were capable; that was seen only in their projects for private clients.

By the 1970s, the design community began to focus on building professional credibility through legislation that would grant them the status of architects and other professionals. New York industry members, most notably Ruth Lynford, spearheaded the effort. Alabama was the first state to achieve the goal, in 1982.xvi

THE MEDIA: CREATING STARS I N the late 1950s, Interiors magazine became the industry’s most avid promoter of modern design. Under editor Olga Gueft, from 1952 until 9

THE HISTORY

her retirement in the 1980s, the magazine’s bias was clearly toward modernism and International style architecture, and it was quick to feature the work of Ward Bennett (as early as June 1951) and later other American modernists, along with designs by European innovators. The magazine proselytized enthusiastically for modernism, but by the 1960s, it softened its doctrinaire approach, acknowledging the ambivalence of its readers and sanctioning a somewhat broader approach.xvii As designers continued to cross over and occasionally straddle the line between old and new, the projects publicized in the media, from New York and gradually from other metropolitan areas, increasingly mirrored these changes.

Without question, the publication most influential in elevating the status of interior designers in general, and a nucleus of favored designers in particular, was Architectural Digest. Founded in 1920, it began as a California-based trade publication of little distinction that gradually featured more decorated interiors as the industry grew. By summer of 1969, editor Bradley Little wrote, “The designs you see in our magazines are actual homes lived in by real people such as yourselves.” Four years later, it would be another story altogether. Paige Rense became editor in mid-1973 and remade the magazine into perhaps the most powerful force in the industry, by showing homes that readers could fantasize about—and hope to emulate.

Rense published only the work of professional designers, and only their most exceptional projects, some by established firms and others by emerging talents—by which publication they became established. Each showed many rooms of a residence—although generally not kitchens or bathrooms—in wide-angle shots with dramatic lighting. Rooms appeared as they had been designed, without the extensive “propping” or restyling that was the customary practice of decorating magazines. The glamorous presentation and upscale readership of the magazine lent considerable 10

cachet to any designer whose work appeared in its pages. The magazine’s editorial policy was famously restrictive, requiring that work be offered exclusively to Architectural Digest and reportedly denying exposure to any who allowed their work to be published elsewhere. Designers had two important reasons for agreeing to such terms: the prestige attached to publication in AD, and the exposure to a national readership of affluent prospective clients.

Of course Architectural Digest did not restrict itself to New York, publishing projects by designers and architects across the country as well as internationally. However, New York designers fared well in its pages: between 1975 and 1985, AD featured Jay Spectre 22 times, Robert Metzger, 17, and Tom Britt, 14. Others whose work appeared frequently were Joseph Braswell, Melvin Dwork, Carleton Varney, Mark Hampton, Keith Irvine, Albert Hadley, Michael de Santis, John Saladino, Juan Montoya, Mario Buatta, and many other designers featured in this book.xviii Beginning in the mid-1970s, coffee-table books increasingly began covering modern interiors by avant-gardists like Bray-Schaible, Joseph Paul D’Urso, and Patino-Wolf, as well as sophisticated interpretations by John Saladino, Juan Montoya, and others whose work was by no definition traditional. Written by Norma Skurka, the 1976 edition of The New York Times Book of Interior Design and Decoration showed projects by New York designers including Harrison Cultra, Mario Buatta, David Easton, and Angelo Donghia.

Minimalism, the radical direction in modern interiors that splintered the New York design community in the late 1970s, erased any remaining unanimity of approach, separating designers trained at Pratt and Tate-influenced Parsons graduates from everyone else. The movement and its practitioners were famously documented in the 1978 book, High-Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for the Home, in which

THE HISTORY

coauthors Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin both defined an era and initiated a wave of enthusiasm for hard-edged furniture, industrial carpeting, metal factory shelving, and laboratory-glass containers. This book, and others that followed, depicted the loft and loftlike interiors that were a phenomenon in the growing downtown Manhattan community, primarily in Soho, and later spreading to other former factory and warehouse buildings in several parts of the city. The increasing conversion of industrial space to residential gave rise to an entirely new approach to interior design—one that architects enthusiastically undertook, modern-leaning designers explored, and traditionalists emphatically shunned.

High-tech or handcrafted, modern or traditional, the work of New York designers continued to dominate depictions of current styles in decorating books. Erica Brown’s Interior Views: Design at Its Best (1980) featured an international cast of 24 designers; fewer than half were Americans, but of those who were, 14 represented the New York School. Interior Design, the New Freedom (1982) by Barbaralee Diamonstein highlighted interviews and work by Ward Bennett, Bray-Schaible, Mario Buatta, Angelo Donghia, Joseph D’Urso, Mark Hampton, Sarah Tomerlin Lee, Warren Platner, John Saladino, Robert A. M. Stern, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, and Emilio Ambasz—every single one based in New York.xix

THE SHOWCASES: DESIGNING FANTASY M O R E T H R E E - D I M E N S I O N A L and more immediate to the consumer’s experience than anything on the page were the public showcases that made designers into celebrities. These included the industry-staged home furnishings shows and model apartments described earlier. But there were more glamorous presentations of the open-to-view decorated interior.

One of these, in the mid-1960s, was the project of Celanese Corporation, which took over an East Side town house and retained Inman Cook to decorate the interiors—obviously, using Celanese fabrics.

Redone completely by David Barrett in 1965 and by McMillen in 1967, this realistic treatment of livable interiors, with a touch of glamour, again presented designers in the best possible light.xx A new and far more ambitious idea was the decorator show house, in which a number of selected designers (generally chosen by a charity committee) transformed rooms of an empty house for viewing by the public; an entry fee raised funds for the charity. The most prominent of these began in New York in 1973: the Kips Bay Decorator Show House was an immediate success, attracting crowds eager to admire (and possibly hire) the designers whose work they saw. The first site was the Milliken mansion at 723 Park Avenue, a house originally decorated by Elsie de Wolfe and Nancy McClelland. Employing the talents of 19 decorators, it was a pastiche of competing interiors by David Barrett, Ellen Lehman McCluskey, Mario Buatta, Alexandra Stoddard (for McMillen), and others who created elegant, traditional rooms.xxi By its sixth year, the event was drawing some 15,000 visitors to marvel at the work of designers from “traditionalists like Parish-Hadley and Mark Hampton” to the “all-out contemporary look” of Tom O’Toole and Rita Falkener to “eclectics” like Ruben de Saavedra and Harrison Cultra.xxii Even when many designers were working in a modern vernacular, show house interiors remained overwhelmingly traditional—luxurious displays and extravagant objects made a grander statement than understated modern. When the economy slowed in the 1980s, however, less ostentatious interiors by Easton & LaRocca, Mariette Himes Gomez, Irvine & Fleming, and Zajac & Callahan reflected a more appropriate conservative approach.xxiii Toward the closing decades of the 20th century, the New York design community was a more substantial group than ever in its history, though 11

THE HISTORY

no longer a homogeneous one. Its design parameters cut across many lines, from firm traditionalists to explorers pushing the envelope. A vocation once considered the province of effete dilettantes was by that time a major industry, and its most successful practitioners had cachet and social status equaling that of the pioneer decorators, and often surpassing them. The industry coalesced around Lester Dundes, the jovial and outspoken publisher of Interior Design, which had become the profession’s leading publication.

In December 1985, Interior Design certified the stature of the profession by instituting a Hall of Fame to convey recognition on its brightest

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and most influential stars. At a gala dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, 13 honorees were named (including a special award to Paige Rense of Architectural Digest) and four specialists in the contract or hospitality fields. Of the nine residential designers, one was from Chicago, one from San Francisco, and all the rest from New York: Benjamin Baldwin, Mario Buatta, Barbara D’Arcy, Angelo Donghia (posthumous), Melanie Kahane, Mrs. Henry Parish II, and John Saladino. Despite all efforts to be inclusive, the magazine readers and industry members who selected the honorees could not fail to acknowledge the continuing leadership of the New York School of interior designers.

JOSEPH PAUL D’URSO

N O A M E R I C A N designer is as closely associated with the term minimalist as Joseph Paul D’Urso. Among the first practitioners of the style— beginning in the 1970s—he was probably the most visible and almost certainly the most emulated. His approach was studiously copied by dozens of would-be modernists, but none quite managed to achieve the fine-tuned precision of his designs. Bearing certain similarities but hardly identical, his designs were artfully rendered compositions, at the same time scrupulously understated and commanding in their presence.

He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Pratt Institute, graduating in 1965 with a degree in interior design. “At Pratt we were pretending we were architects—we were tearing out walls. Whenever I got an assignment, I turned it into architecture,” he recalls. The training, and his subsequent apprenticeship with Ward Bennett, encouraged him to approach interior design in a radically different manner from most others then practicing. He began his own practice in 1967, later sharing office space with partners Bob Bray and Michael Schaible, who also shared his minimalist inclinations.

In sculpting a space, D’Urso would strip it to a bare shell, and then construct an interior within it by manipulating planes and surfaces as an artist composes an abstraction, sometimes punctuating walls with 52

openings, often varying levels or carving out stairways. The resulting spaces were for neither the faint of heart nor those with acquisitive leanings: they allowed scant leeway for ornament, as the complex spatial volumes were decoration in themselves.

A D’Urso interior is immediately recognizable, since it is likely to contain the same basic design vocabulary, although it varied according to the particular space, client, and circumstances. It is distinctive in its uncompromising simplicity, its sculptured volumes and angular forms, and its minimalist palette. Although influenced by his mentor, D’Urso forged his own path, distilling and refining Bennett’s functionalism to its purest form. He made agile use of platforms, built in much of the furniture, and delineated areas with subtle contrasts of tone and texture.

The most striking of the spaces D’Urso created for his clients were virtually devoid of color, varying high-intensity white with matte and glossy surfaces, and occasionally modifying black to slate gray. Pivoting floor-to-ceiling panels served as both walls to separate living areas and doors to allow passage between them. Window treatments were more often than not the simplest white vertical blinds, and industrial lighting added dramatic affect.

As he continued to explore the parameters of design, D’Urso expanded his repertoire to include judicious applications of color and the occasional use of period furniture, generally treated as art objects.

Impossible to overlook, his work was both praised for its originality and castigated for its rigor. Internationally published, it drew enthusiastic clients who shared the designer’s sensibility. D’Urso was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 1986, its second year. Archetypes of a genre, his interior environments are uncompromisingly austere, yet compelling in their disciplined precision and absolute assurance.

Carpeted platform bed with built-ins, Tribeca apartment, ca. 1958

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F

Long view of apartment with small rooms transformed into open-plan spaces, Tribeca apartment, ca. 1958

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Floor plan of reconfigured studio apartment, Central Park West, 1975

JOSEPH PAUL D’URSO

Minimalist studio apartment with 10-foot black rubber and steel table, carpeted platforms as furniture, and vertical blinds around bedroom, Central Park West, 1975

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BRAY–SCHAIBLE (ROBERT BRAY AND MICHAEL SCHAIBLE)

D E S P I T E T H E FA C T that the design world considers them among the top-ranking, innovative minimalists, Robert Bray and Michael Schaible steadfastly refused to place themselves in any particular category. In repeated interviews during their decades in joint practice, they denied having a signature style, explaining that they were never interested in repeating themselves. Nonetheless, they must be seen as masterful practitioners of the often-misunderstood art of minimalist design, creating interiors that balance architectural precision with a fine sense of proportion and a keen understanding of individual client needs.

Both were small-town boys—Bray from Ardmore, Oklahoma, and Schaible from Oakley, Kansas—who met as classmates at Parsons School of Design, from which both graduated in 1965, at a time when the school was in the throes of directional changes. They were among the last group to study under both Stanley Barrows and Allen Tate, as the school’s focus on European-influenced traditional design began to shift to embrace the ideas of Bauhaus-influenced modernism. “They were all fighting, but we got the best of both sides,” says Schaible.

Having worked together after graduation at the commercial design firms Ford & Earl and Saphier, Lerner, Schindler Environetics, Bray and Schaible left in 1969 to establish their own office. Their first project, 62

undertaken even before leaving their jobs, was the attention-getting design of a midtown flower shop, Terrestris, with striking dark walls and slate flooring, which helped jump-start their fledgling firm. The partners soon became bored with commercial work, preferring residential projects that allowed them to deal with architectural elements, knocking down walls and reconfiguring space. “We were at the beginning of designers’ doing both architecture and interiors,” Schaible explains. Distinguishing between decoration and design—between merely selecting and placing furniture and designing it to suit a space—the two found little challenge in limiting themselves only to decorating.

Their first published work, in January 1970, was a design for a Playboy penthouse apartment, a fantasy project including a waterbed, sketched

by Bray, who later described it as “vulgar.” It was just the first of many magazine and newspaper features in the United States and abroad focusing on the partners’ interiors. Lacking the social connections of most oldguard designers, Bray-Schaible built their clientele by referral and by prominent media exposure.

The 1970s and ’80s was a watershed era for the design profession, encompassing the phenomenon of Studio 54 and a general enthusiasm for everything new and modern. The look of the moment called for white

walls, commercial carpeting, platform seating with charcoal or black upholstery, and industrial objects as accessories—the style later named

by Suzanne Slesin and Joan Kron in their 1978 book, High-Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for the Home. It was a look that seemed inexpensive and easy to achieve, but in truth required considerable finesse to carry off.

Bray-Schaible, Bromley Jacobsen, and Joseph Paul D’Urso (with whom Bray-Schaible shared office space) were in the forefront of practitioners of the new minimalist aesthetic. Styling themselves as young rebels, they refused to wear jackets or ties, dressed exclusively in black, and kept their office and staff determinedly small. Bray and Schaible’s own New York apartments, although in different parts of the city, seem at first glance almost to be two views of the same space—compositions in black and white, with polished surfaces, spare accents, and unadorned walls.

The art-free walls, rather than a calculated element in their designs, was often a necessary by-product. Since most of Bray-Schaible’s early clients had limited budgets, few could afford the artworks generally used to finish off an interior. The designers therefore planned simple, strippeddown environments with blank walls to which art could later be added.

Or sometimes not, as Schaible observes: “A beautiful blank wall with shadows on it is more attractive than second-rate art.”

With the increasing affluence of their clientele, the designers softened their academic approach, and their style evolved from unrelenting minimalism to a more relaxed modern aesthetic that included touches of color as well as objects and artworks. Facing the challenges posed by boxlike New York apartments, Bray-Schaible maximized their possibilities, treating interiors as sculptural compositions and dispelling the idea that all modern interiors must look alike.

Despite the consistency of their designs, the designers modulated their approach according to the requirements of the client. However, Schaible once said, “We will do what a client insists on, but we will never agree with them if we think they are wrong.”

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Loftlike duplex apartment with pale, polished wood floors, and enclosure created by columnar dividers, Park Avenue, ca. 1980

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BRAY–SCHAIBLE

Sectional seating “floats” in center of living room with angled panels beneath windows to display art, ca. 1980

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Geometric wall sections and ceiling cutouts turn space into sculpture, Upper East Side apartment, ca. 1980

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Serpentine railing defines stairway to second level and ceiling cutout expands space, Upper East Side apartment, ca. 1980

BROMLEY JACOBSEN (R SCOTT BROMLEY AND ROBIN JACOBSEN)

A M O N G T H E E A R LY P R O P O N E N T S of bold minimalist design, the firm Bromley Jacobsen carried the torch for a counterculture that embraced high fashion, high design, and an exuberant lifestyle in the late 1970s and early ’80s. At the center of a community of creative professionals determined to shake up the establishment, the partners in turn became part of the new establishment that followed.

Canadian-born Scott Bromley might have pursued his talents to become a concert pianist or an Olympic swimmer, but chose to study architecture instead. Honing his skills in the offices of Philip Johnson, where he became head of the design department, Bromley designed highrise buildings and commercial spaces for Emery Roth & Sons before establishing an independent practice in 1974.

Although he designed a number of striking residential and commercial spaces, Scott Bromley’s most highly visible—and career-making— accomplishment was the design of Studio 54, the now legendary discotheque that defined both a lifestyle and a decade from its very opening in 1977. On the heels of this success, he joined Robin Jacobsen in establishing the firm Bromley Jacobsen Architecture + Design.

The partners, along with contemporaries Joseph Paul D’Urso, Robert Bray, and Michael Schaible—all architecture-oriented, although Bromley 76

was the only trained architect among them—became the leaders of the minimalist movement and the most innovative proponents of what was designated “high-tech” style after the 1978 book of the same name.

Bromley Jacobsen showed a rare facility for devising interiors that were as supremely elegant as they were uncompromisingly spare. Beginning their partnership in a time of recession, they worked for many clients who were remodeling as a less costly alternative to moving to new residences. Their solution was to use architecture to reconfigure the space rather than simply changing its look with expensive new objects. In their interiors, design interest derives not from the furnishings placed in them, but rather the spaces themselves. Light was manipulated to almost theatrical effect and glass, slate, and leather became expressions of sumptuousness rather than simplicity, creating open expanses that were surprisingly warm, even intimate.

“We like pushing the envelope,” Bromley has said, “but at the end of every project, there are people who must live in it.” Each commission had its own character: consistent elements among them included grand entrance spaces, glass block used as a sculptural and architectural device, and neon for dramatic accents.

Bromley Jacobsen was invited in 1984 to participate in the New York Kips Bay Show House, usually a display of elaborate interiors in traditional style. The firm sculpted a slant-roofed garret space with platforms sprayed to mimic concrete; they used grid dividers and black leather upholstery, greenery, and slashes of neon for a bold, yet seductive statement that virtually stopped traffic.

As minimalism became less an aberration and more an accepted design expression, Bromley Jacobsen settled into the ranks of elite design professionals, moderating to some extent their early extremism. Acquiring a roster of affluent clients, they occasionally interjected antiques, which integrated comfortably into their minimalist spaces. Yet, like all explorers, their designs reflected a consistent search for new horizons.

Long view of living area with slate floor, leather swivel chairs, and greenery, Scott Bromley’s own loft apartment, West 30s, 1982

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Steel-wrapped studio workroom with tufted, upholstered cushions on seating platforms, 1980s

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BROMLEY JACOBSEN

Living area with partial walls, illuminated ceiling coffers, overscale sectional seating, and neutral palette to highlight artworks, Upper East Side apartment, 1982

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Master bath wrapped in black-and-white marble with glass block wall, Upper East Side apartment, 1982

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BROMLEY JACOBSEN

Dining area and kitchen with neon track on ceiling to define traffic pattern and angled wall to define hallway, Upper East Side apartment, 1982

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PATINO – WOLF (BOB PATINO AND VICENTE WOLF)

I T I S A R A R E D E S I G N C O N C E P T that comes from a single, identifiable source; accordingly, credit has been given to several firms for initiating the move toward minimalism. The partnership of Bob Patino and Vicente Wolf is certainly among them. They were in the first contingent of those for whom architectural considerations ran parallel to those of interior design, placing them in a category that includes Joseph D’Urso and the firms of Bray–Schaible and Bromley Jacobsen. Interesting to note, they are the only designers in the group who did not formally study their trade, but came to it from another direction.

Vicente Wolf was born in Cuba and emigrated to the United States in 1961. He worked briefly in several other fields before taking a job at a showroom in the D&D Building in New York, which had become the center of the burgeoning design industry. He took on freelance design projects for Mario Buatta and Angelo Donghia before joining Bob Patino to form Patino–Wolf in 1976. Bob Patino, a New Yorker, had begun his career in textile showrooms before joining with designer Bebe Winkler in an interior design business.

The timing of the Patino-Wolf partnership was fortuitous, coming just as the minimalist aesthetic was beginning to take form. Their success was swift, abetted by prominence in High-Tech: The Industrial 88

Style and Source Book for the Home, the 1978 book that gave a name to the style that adopted materials from industry for residential applications; the work of Patino–Wolf was represented by several projects and featured on the cover.

Patino–Wolf designed for a clientele that included upwardly mobile young professionals and people from the entertainment world—clients more amenable to radical ideas and to modern design generally, than the socialite client rosters of older, more established firms. Their interiors were rendered with spare efficiency, following the imperatives of their favored aesthetic. Color schemes were most often monochromatic neutrals, platforms frequently provided architectural interest as well as seating, and pattern was generally absent from consideration. Diverging somewhat from their colleagues, Patino–Wolf produced designs often marked by grace notes of softness—plump cushions or plush fabrics that modulated the tendency toward starkness threatened by hardedged materials. Classicism moved into the vocabulary a bit later, particularly in Vicente Wolf’s inclination to modify the limited minimalist vocabulary by embracing more varied expressions. This more flexible approach contributed to the creation of interiors that can be difficult to classify.

Although it may run counter to the rule that a professional designer must undergo highly structured training in the techniques and principles of the craft, the Patino–Wolf partnership is a reminder that the best professional training doesn’t guarantee sucess in business—but innate talent does.

Vicente Wolf, a peripatetic traveler, applied his acute eye to photography as well as design, publishing several books of his photographs later in his career.

Living room with raised ceiling and skylight, charcoal sofas, and cube table, Long Island house, ca. 1965

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Dining room with slate floor, gray flannel walls, slatetopped table, and Mies “Brno� chairs, Upper East Side apartment, 1984

PATINO – WOLF

Living room with open-plan layout, black leather sectional seating, white vertical blinds; library in rear with bleached-oak paneling, Upper East Side apartment, 1984

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THE SYBARITES

Interpreting metropolitan style with flair and finesse, these designers turned city-slick into city-sleek, in soignÊ spaces mirroring the sophistication of clients who demanded nothing less than the best of current fashion. For a new generation of urban professionals, they designed environments that were up to the minute in style, but with glamour to rival any formal traditional room. Jay Spectre deployed lush upholstery and Asian accessories in rooms with grandeur that, despite their elegance, spoke clearly in the language of modernity. Noel Jeffrey devised a distinctive genre of Manhattan-sleek apartments for art-savvy young families. Samuel Botero infused modern rooms with warmth and personality, adding showcase art objects to make them come alive, and Juan Montoya’s modernist interiors were virtuoso performances, making bold use of color for dramatic effects.

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JAY SPECTRE

J AY S P E C T R E was a master of the grand gesture. His interiors were dramatic visual compositions, reflecting his superb sense of scale and eye for contrasts of materials and textures. Few other designers of his time were as adept at dramatizing a room with a single element. In the metal-mad 1980s, for example, he sometimes used walls of polished steel as glamorous backdrops for lavish furnishings that were contemporary, but the polar opposite of austere.

Spectre was not schooled as a designer, an exception to the rule for his generation. Born and schooled in Louisville, Kentucky, he began his career designing window displays in his family’s department store. In 1968, he moved to New York to establish his design business. Spectre’s sumptuous but subdued interiors drew a prosperous and loyal client base of what he referred to as “silent celebrities,” people whose passion for privacy was matched only by their ability to spend on the exquisite accoutrements the designer selected. His commissions ranged from spacious apartments and great mansions to private planes and yachts and corporate offices.

Drawing on his experience in display, he composed rooms in a range of colors, but frequently chose neutral schemes punctuated by virtuoso touches, among them custom-designed rugs, fine paintings, and striking 124

accessories. Spectre favored overscale sectional sofas and cabinetry with fine lacquer or polished wood finishes, and accessories that were often Asian or African. He mixed contrasting materials like raw silk and bleached oak, using mirrors as counterpoints against lacquer, metal, and almost always, a touch of greenery. It was a rich and international blend with an ambience that was undeniably modern. In their consistent luxury, his rooms recalled the best of French Art Deco style. Although they incorporated art, Spectre interiors were not designed around it— they were integrated compositions.

Spectre once noted that New York designers must resist the urge to overdo and his work demonstrates very well the fine art of knowing when enough is enough. Though his materials were often extravagant, Spectre’s fine sense of proportion ensured that they were never overdone.

He drew inspiration from his own sophisticated tastes and his skilled applications of lighting revealed Spectre’s interest in new technology: he often combined lighting effects along with mirrors to disguise and soften the boxy forms of modern apartments.

Spectre sought to make his interiors reflect their time, and they did— his most celebrated years were a time of opulence and glamour in a booming economy. His work was widely admired and internationally

published. Moving beyond residential interiors and private commissions, he designed showrooms for Clarence House, the prestigious textile company. In 1985, Spectre and his partner, Geoffrey Bradfield, a McMillen alumnus who had joined the company in 1978, formed a licensing firm, the results of which were furniture, textiles, tableware, and lighting.

Spectre was elected to the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 1986, its second year.

Dining room with English furniture and English and Asian collections, Westchester house, 1980s

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Guest bedroom with slate floor and stainless steel furniture, the designer’s Southampton, Long Island, weekend house, 1971

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Living room with leather sofas, slate floor, and Nevelson sculpture, designer’s own weekend house, 1971

SAMUEL BOTERO

A D E S I G N E R with a keen sense of how people like to live, Samuel Botero creates interiors that temper a modern aesthetic with personal style and a refreshing lack of pretension. Beginning in the middle 1970s, he created spaces that, reflecting his Latin heritage, made deft use of strong color and personal accents; in the designer’s words, “Most people have a history they want to present.”

Botero emigrated from Colombia to New York when he was a youngster. Enrolled in school and unable to speak English, he taught himself the language by watching and listening to television. His interest in design led him to apply to Pratt Institute, where he was awarded a scholarship and from which he graduated with a degree in interior design in 1968.

His inclinations parted from the doctrinaire minimalism of his alma mater. “You have to be very disciplined to be a true minimalist,” he explained, adding, “I found myself fighting the desire to do beautiful window treatments.” Consequently, he took a job as an assistant to Billy Baldwin, whose attitude toward design was more inclusive. He then honed his skills in a small firm that did office and commercial space, and he did freelance designs of everything from catalogs to Christmas cards.

Employed as a draftsman for Ford & Earl—a company that also served 140

as early training ground for Robert Bray, Michael Schaible, and Juan Montoya—Botero worked on the design of a Manhattan town house for a prominent client, a project he describes as life changing: “From then on, I wanted to work with only the best things.” Through a referral from that client, he was awarded an important commission in Mexico, and lived there for a year to complete it. Returning to New York in 1974, he established his independent design practice.

Botero lacked the family connections to build a career through personal referrals alone, so he decided to market himself through the media. He photographed all of his projects—a costly venture for a young designer—and submitted them to design and shelter magazines until one was accepted for publication. One of his first published works, in 1977, was his own apartment. With increased exposure his reputation began to grow, bringing him to the attention of prospective clients and establishing him within the design community.

Operating out of an East Side town house, Botero became known primarily for residential design. He established himself without a trademark look, but with a particular design attitude: unquestionably modern interiors that deviate from the usual of that genre in being more expressive than extreme. Botero refused to confine himself to the customary

modernist palettes of monochromatic beiges or high-impact black and white, his rooms are as likely to use warmer tones with more outspoken appeal. He eclectic mix of furniture includes shapely, softly cushioned upholstered pieces that bespeak comfort, and is more inclined to introduce accents with interesting objects than with patterned materials. Even the grandest of his spaces can be described as comfortable and refreshingly unpretentious.

In 1979, he was invited to participate in the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, placing him in the ranks of an elite group of New York design professionals. Far from being owed to a pre-existing social network, Botero’s success grew from a combination of training, experience, and considerable skill.

Den with mix of African textiles, Litchfield, Connecticut, ca. 1985

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Living room with sisal matting, stacked seating cushions, Kilims and carpets, New Jersey house, 1972

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Dining room with bare walls, bentwood chairs, and Kilim rug as tablecloth, New Jersey house, 1972

SAMUEL BOTERO

Living room with high-key color and pattern for textile designer, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1974

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Dining area in open living space with Laverne chairs, marble-top table, dark parquet floor, Upper East Side apartment, ca. 1980

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View from living area showing Robsjohn-Gibbings chaise, black leather upholstery, and flatweave rug, ca. 1980

SAMUEL BOTERO

Entrance gallery with white walls and black panels, Trova sculpture, and modern artworks, collector’s apartment, Upper East Side apartment, 1985

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JUAN MONTOYA

J U A N M O N T O YA’ S design identity is something of a paradox. Although he is often placed in the minimalist modern camp, he harbors a passion for objects and his interiors reflect his refusal to remove them from living environments. At the same time, Montoya maintains an enduring respect for the lessons of classical design and a commitment to bold use of color.

The spaces that result from this mix of inspiration are dynamic and beguiling, unremittingly modern with swashbuckling flourishes that set them apart from more conventional interpretations of the style.

A native of Colombia, Montoya studied architecture there before emigrating to New York to attend Parsons School of Design, at a time when the school was in transition away from its original focus on European period styles. In the new department of Environmental Design, the parameters of study shifted. Graduating in 1972, Montoya has recalled, “I learned a different language; we dealt with spatial issues more than decoration. It was like a fusion of architectural and interior design.”

His career in design reflected this broad orientation: spatial planning was key in his apprenticeship at the architectural office of Ford & Earl (where Joe D’Urso, Robert Bray, Michael Schaible, and Samuel Botero also trained, though at different times). He followed that training with two years in Paris and Italy, working and studying furniture design.

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Returning to America, he was hired as a designer of dental offices, and found himself in demand for that unusual specialty, where his spaceplanning skills were critical. The experience formed the beginnings of his independent practice, which began modestly in 1975.

As his practice grew and prospered, the interiors for which Montoya became known as his practice grew and prospered were spare but certainly not simple. They are most often described as dramatic, with furniture that generally avoids making a statement, allowing the virtuoso effects to speak for themselves. The rooms are likely to be enhanced by meticulously controlled lighting and well thought-out selections of art or antiques he deployed as focal points. In many cases, interior shells have been restructured to create separate areas that function independently, and flow together seamlessly.

Montoya’s skill in applying color lies in treating it as a tool to be manipulated rather than as a purely decorative element. His masterful treatment can transform conventional city apartments, as it did one whose darkened entry opens into an expansive living area punctuated by brilliant red columns, a reminder of Montoya’s grounding in classical forms. Bold black with white—rather than the more customary white with black—accented by brilliant lacquer red, is a favorite Montoya

scheme, as is the modernist’s preferred palette of neutrals, which he employs with more variations than most.

Exposure in the Kips Bay Decorators Show House and frequent publication in prestigious national magazines secured a prominent reputation for his work, which focused on residential interiors, expanding into the design of furnishings, fabrics, carpets, and accessories.

Bedroom with carpeted platform bed and quilted upholstery, Upper Madison Avenue, 1980

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Entrance hall with glass wall, lacquered columns, Venetian mirror, and Art Deco console, Park Avenue apartment, ca. 1985

Living room with repeating lacquered columns, custom cabinet, sliding lattice, and window panels, ca. 1985

MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Living room looking toward modern fireplace with black moldings, brick-patterned, textured plaster wall, and low modern upholstered furniture; paintings by Fernando Botero and Karel Appel, Park Avenue apartment, ca. 1985

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JUAN MONTOYA

Dining room with pair of tables and painting by Julio Larraz against mirrored wall, Park Avenue apartment, ca. 1985

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THE SYNTHESIZERS

Like Janus, these designers looked both forward and back, executing modern rooms with classical refinement, grace, and a keen sense of personal style. Their versatility encompassed the best of both worlds, creating spaces that, though unquestionably of the particular moment, are usually difficult to date. Barbara D’Arcy set the stage for many moods for almost two decades in her Bloomingdale’s model rooms, failing ever to repeat herself. Multitalented Angelo Donghia combined traditional and modern training to build a network of design businesses and create the first signature collection of furniture. John Saladino, a modernist firmly grounded in history, created a trademark look in contemporary spaces that alluded to classical tradition. And Clodagh, a successful fashion designer, translated her talent to mix spiritualism and sensuality in highly personal, eclectic interiors.

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BARBARA D’ARCY

T H E R E A R E M A N Y D E S I G N E R S whose work is difficult to categorize, but among designers of her generation, Barbara D’Arcy’s is probably the most varied. This is in part because of her versatility and imagination, and even more because of the ground rules under which she operated. Her mandate as a model-room designer was not only to be endlessly innovative but never to repeat herself. In following these precepts during her tenure at Bloomingdale’s department store between 1958 and 1973, she created some of the most original, and certainly the most talked about, rooms in New York—and perhaps the country.

Born in New York, D’Arcy graduated from the College of New Rochelle with a degree in art, and joined Bloomingdale’s in 1952. In 1958 she became fashion display coordinator, and was put in charge of the fifth floor model rooms. In the Bloomingdale’s New York flagship store, she created dozens of settings annually, and several hundred (632 by actual count) over the course of the next 16 years, when the store’s homefurnishings division was the most fashion-forward in the country.

Redecorated quarterly, the Bloomingdale’s model rooms were unveiled at invitation-only events, eagerly anticipated by the design community as well as home furnishings manufacturers and consumers seeking decorating ideas. Some of the displays were intended to showcase particular 164

furniture lines, while others were pure flights of fancy, introductions of new concepts, or simple unadulterated fun. In spaces that intrigued and seduced, D’Arcy aroused and encouraged customers’ interest in beautifying their homes—and in doing so, they would enlist the services of the interior designers who could help them in the effort.

D’Arcy had the considerable advantage of not having to deal with real clients, but she faced other challenges. Working within the limited space of the furniture department, the constraints of an overworked display staff, and inflexible deadlines, she produced a remarkable variety of settings and some of the most provocative interiors of her time. A good many mirrored seasonal trends, but dozens of others were the product of D’Arcy’s fertile imagination and talent for the unexpected.

Among her most memorable conceits were a grottolike interior constructed of fiberglass foam; various iterations of stepped-up, carpeted platforms; an interior wrapped in corrugated paperboard to introduce Frank Gehry’s “Easy Edges” furniture designs; book-lined environments using hundreds of leatherbound volumes acquired by a predecessor on the job; a space-age metalwrapped surround; and a bright red landscape of cylindrical storage units just off the boat from Italy. Her interiors combined mass-produced furniture pieces with quirky craft objects, exotic imports, and well-chosen art.

D’Arcy was an important part of the team that shopped the world over when Bloomingdale’s inaugurated a series of import fairs, storewide promotional events for which internationally themed merchandise was commissioned by every department. Fairs that focused on Scandinavia, France, Italy, and other countries helped stimulate American interest in foreign goods—and travel.

Magazines and newspapers across the country reported on the design directions spotlighted and anticipated by D’Arcy and Bloomingdale’s, and other stores scheduled similar events. In 1971, she was made fashion director for home furnishings and later, director of merchandise presentation, with responsibility for display throughout the store.

Whatever her effect on the consuming public, D’Arcy’s accomplishments were not lost on her colleagues. Both the National Society of Interior Designers and the American Society of Interior Designers bestowed awards on her and in 1985, she was one of the first inductees into the Interior Design magazine Hall of Fame.

Fiberglass foam creates a fantasy ice-house enclosure, Bloomingdale’s, 1960s

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White-on-white room in Greek island theme, tile surround, and flourescent lighting beneath plexiglass floor, Bloomingdale’s, 1960s

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BARBARA D’ARCY

Biomorphic cavelike surround with curvy foam seating slabs, Bloomingdale’s, 1960s

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Living room inspired by Pop Art with Kartell plastic furniture and Italian squashy sofas, Bloomingdale’s, 1968

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BARBARA D’ARCY

One-room living space with Frank Gehry’s “Easy Edges” corrugated paper furniture, Bloomingdale’s, 1969

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ANGELO DONGHIA

A D E S I G N E R who may be termed either a traditional modernist or a modern traditionalist, depending on the particular project (or on one’s point of view), Angelo Donghia was a man of many talents, and several businesses. At a time when fashion designers were beginning to introduce “signature collections,” he was the first, and for a time the only, interior designer to put his name on a production furniture line. One of his most notable and much-cited innovations was to use ordinary men’s suiting for upholstery and wall covering, earning him the sobriquet “the gray flannel prince.”

Angelo Donghia was born in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. He came to New York to attend Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1958 in the same class as Tom Britt, Ed Zajac, and Richard Callahan. He applied for a job with Yale Burge, one of the most prominent decorators of the time, who also operated a thriving antiques and reproduction furniture shop.

That was to be the only job he ever had. In 1966 he became a partner and the firm was renamed Burge-Donghia. When Burge died in 1972, Donghia inherited the design business (the Burge family took over the shop), and he began to express his own ideas.

Donghia’s taste was more contemporary than that of his former partner, and it was most famously displayed in the town house he 174

purchased for himself in 1968 and decorated with deep emerald walls and white moldings, bleached sand-tone floors, silver-leaf ceilings (one of his favorite ideas), and the aforementioned gray flannel.

Bamboo blinds, quilted white bedspreads, and a bold geometricpatterned floor in ordinary vinyl were among the novel ideas that transformed the undistinguished spaces into bold statements with a fresh new look and welcoming air. He once told an interviewer, “The stresses of contemporary life wear on us. We need a place to go— warm, friendly, secure.” Donghia’s interiors made frequent use of wicker, crisp white upholstery on overscale upholstered pieces, and walls in shiny lacquer. He designed corporate offices and hospitality projects as well as residences, and his client roster included a number of marquee names.

Despite Donghia’s fondness for certain decorative elements, he did not actually have a signature style. His rooms may not always be easy to identify, but they are invariably lively and (almost always) colorful. They make generous use of accessories, but avoid clutter. They use a few pieces of large-scale furniture rather than many small ones. And despite a failure of his interiors to reference any particular period, they can with certainty be placed at the modern end of the spectrum.

Donghia’s head for business was as finely honed as his sense of style: he was the first designer to spread his wings in a broader marketplace, opening & Vice Versa, a fabric and wall covering firm, in 1968. A decade later, he opened a furniture division, and beginning in 1976, a network of showrooms in design centers around the country. He was the first to design a bedding collection; his licensing division, formed in 1973, predated the dozens which later sprang into being.

Angelo Donghia died in 1985 at the peak of his career, leaving a legacy of innovative design as well as a family of successful businesses. He was posthumously inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame as a charter member the same year.

“Playroom” with dark green lacquered walls, bleached floor, satin upholstery on Donghia-designed seating, and antique Coromandel screen, designer’s own town house, Upper East Side, ca. 1970

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Dining room with checkerboard wall treatment inspired by Jean-Michel Frank, contemporary furniture, and classical fireplace, Greenwich Village town house, ca. 1975

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ANGELO DONGHIA

Living room, Donghia-designed chairs and sofas, and antique chandelier, Greenwich Village town house, ca. 1975

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THE ARCHITECT’S APPROACH

The proliferation of groundbreaking modernist interiors appearing in New York by the 1980s owes much to the work of a small group of architects. Trained to build on a grand scale, these visionaries could also work within narrower parameters, transforming uninspiring spaces into extraordinary environments by dealing with structure first and furnishings second. Their use of applied geometry and intersecting elements transposed residences into works of art. Richard Meier, best known in this period for his Corbusier-inspired, all-white buildings, also created seamless interiors with polished surfaces and flowing lines that showcased art, books, and furnishings. Lella and Massimo Vignelli, partners in design as well as in life, combined their versatile skills to bring Italian ingenuity to furniture, interiors, and graphic design. Peter Shelton and Lee Mindel refused to accept limits on the possibilities of reformulating space, manipulating interior volumes with skilled doses of color and furnishings chosen with a curatorial eye. In contrast, Steven Holl conceived rooms as abstract geometry, transforming them into unconventional formulations as arresting as sculpture.

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RICHARD MEIER

K N O W N F O R S T R I K I N G white buildings that, particularly in his early creations, paid homage to the tradition of Le Corbusier, Richard Meier became far more widely recognized for his architectural commissions than for his interior design. His aesthetic, however, informs the internal spaces as emphatically as the exteriors of the buildings he designs, and his work on city apartments suggests the very particular approach of a practicing architect to the design of an interior.

Meier, a native of Newark, New Jersey, received his architecture degree from Cornell University in 1957. He worked for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Marcel Breuer before opening his own office in 1968. Meier has designed houses and apartments in addition to his many more public commissions.

He came to prominence relatively early in his career, with buildings almost invariably white that punctuated the suburban landscape with energy and an assertively personal style. Even when he did not design the interiors, the buildings themselves virtually dictated their execution, which was almost always expressed within the context of the Bauhaus aesthetic.

Highlighted in a 1973 book, Five Architects, he was thereafter known as one of the “New York Five,� a group that included Peter Eisenman, 208

Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and John Hejduk; innovative young architects, all of whom, apart from Meier, became associated with the postmodern movement that followed.

Meier’s interiors reflect the consistency of approach that characterizes his most celebrated buildings: a fondness for broad expanses of space, angular forms, and calibrated volumes that are in effect as much sculpture as they are architecture. The apartment he designed for himself in 1977 is an apt example of the form, executed with walls and ceilings of white and polished wood floors, with sweeping spaces that flow into one another divided only by sections of wall that avoid interrupting the panorama. Furniture, spare but comfortable, and a limited but important selection of artworks both outfit and adorn the interiors.

Appropriate for one who designs with an intellectual as well as a visual approach, Meier made sure to provide generous bookshelves that are decorative unto themselves.

Interpreting his ideas beyond interiors, Meier has designed furniture for Knoll and tableware for Swid Powell.

View from dining area to curving stairs, floating wall, and slim console, the architect’s own duplex apartment, Upper East Side, 1977

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

View from dining room toward living room, Breuer chairs around Knoll table, Frank Stella painting, and Le Corbusier tub chairs at rear, architect’s own duplex apartment, Upper East Side, 1977

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RICHARD MEIER

Dining area with Breuer chairs, Knoll table, and lighted display recesses, architect’s own duplex apartment, 1977

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GWATHMEY SIEGEL (CHARLES GWATHMEY AND ROBERT SIEGEL)

O N E O F T H E C O U N T RY ’ S major architectural offices, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates is probably better known to the general public for its muchpublished residential interiors than for the corporate commissions and institutional projects that have brought it peer recognition and architectural awards.

Long before becoming business partners, Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel were friends. North Carolina–born Gwathmey and Siegel, a native New Yorker, met at the city’s High School of Music and Art, where both revealed the skills that would later propel them to the top of their profession. While Siegel went on to Pratt and Harvard and Gwathmey to the University of Pennsylvania and Yale, they were reunited as junior architects working for Edward L. Barnes in New York.

Gwathmey’s career took off with the now-iconic house and studio he designed (with Richard Henderson) for his parents in Amagansett, New York. Completed in 1967, the deceptively simple design, with its angular geometric forms and gray cedar exterior, jump-started his career and helped to define what would become the archetypical Hamptons-area beach house. Featured in a 1967 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (and the accompanying book), Gwathmey was designated, along with Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, John Hejduk, and Richard Meier, 216

as one of the “New York Five,” a group of young modernist architects influenced by Le Corbusier.

Gwathmey and Siegel joined forces in 1968, first as Gwathmey, Henderson & Siegel, and then as Gwathmey Siegel & Associates. Notwithstanding Gwathmey’s higher public profile, the partners collaborate on every project—in their first workspace in the Carnegie Hall building, they even shared an office and a common worktable. Success came quickly and the office expanded to a staff of several dozen employees, who handled various projects in a “team” system, with each team headed by one of the principals. Although Gwathmey Siegel’s work has encompassed all aspects of architectural practice, the largest of which are supervised by either partner, their residential projects, particularly from the 1970s and early 1980s, have been some of their most intriguing. These included a number of oceanfront vacation houses and an equally distinctive series of apartments (many renovations), the category with which Charles Gwathmey has been most closely associated—and which generated extensive media coverage for the firm.

Overcoming the limitations of conventional New York apartmentbuilding layouts, Gwathmey Siegel projects often involved the transformation of difficult spaces into livable ones through an inventive

rearrangement of interior volumes. Gradually moving away from the austerity of its earlier work, which was often referred to as “high tech,” the firm made its mark in the 1980s with interiors whose feeling of opulence contradicts that designation. Although unquestionably simple, their apartments show a fine sense of proportion and a mastery of scale, manipulating space with subtlety, and without gimmicks, while adding warmth through color and textured surfaces—lustrous glass or glass block, polished wood floors, paneled walls, deep-piled carpets, and rich leather upholstery. The resulting layouts are understated and comfortably functional, with a unique vitality and an assured presence.

Outside the office, the partner’s activities reflect their equally affable but different personalities—Gwathmey has taught at some of the country’s leading architectural schools, while Siegel has focused his activities on influential trustee and administrative roles. In addition to architectural and interior work, Gwathmey Siegel has designed furniture for Knoll and tableware for Swid Powell.

Entry foyer with curving wall of glass-brick reflected in wall of mirror, Park Avenue apartment, 1978

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Mirrored wall adds visual dimension to entry hall, Park Avenue apartment, 1978

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GWATHMEY SIEGEL

Dining room with Breuer chairs surrounding Gwathmey-designed marble-top table, 1978 Beyond entry with freestanding wall section for art, polished oak floors, and stainless steel moldings, Park Avenue apartment, 1978 219

MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Dining room with Mies chairs, Tiffany lamp, glass-block wall, and marble floor, Upper East Side apartment, ca. 1980

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GWATHMEY SIEGEL

Gwathmey Siegel product designs: table for Knoll and dinnerware for Swid Powell, 1980s

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VIGNELLI ASSOCIATES (LELLA VIGNELLI AND MASSIMO VIGNELLI)

I N T H E Y E A R S F O L L O W I N G America’s postwar discovery of Italian design, the Vignellis were New York’s own Italian imports, adding their enthusiastic and emphatically modern voices (sometimes jointly, sometimes individually) to interiors, furniture, and a variety of memorable products.

Both Lella and Massimo Vignelli were trained as architects in Italy and at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology; in 1966, they moved to the United States to set up a New York office for Unimark, a leading international design firm. For the firm’s clients, a blue-chip roster of major corporations, Massimo focused primarily on industrial design, while Lella was responsible for interiors. In 1971, they formed Vignelli Associates, and began to broaden their range of design to include everything from residential spaces to showrooms to dinnerware and later, even to clothing.

Their advantage, and their distinction, was a refusal to be limited to any particular area of design. Counter to the American tendency to specialize, designers in Italy (whose training is usually as architects) are encouraged otherwise: “If you can design one thing, you can design everything,” is Massimo’s oft-quoted maxim.

Vignelli Associates first gained attention with graphics—a landmark calendar that began the week with Sunday—and with exhibition design, 228

as well as signage for the New York City subway system and shopping bags for Bloomingdale’s department store. Moving on to interiors, they created spaces that combined a degree of minimalism with the same wit and flourishes evident in the wave of Italian furniture that flooded America in the 1960s and 1970s.

When the seeds of modernism took root, the Vignellis departed somewhat from the mainstream of their countrymen, following their own direction. They continued to design interiors that were not so much highly personal as they were timelessly eloquent, avoiding any specificity of style. Their furniture designs for Stendig included low-lying marble tables and comfortably thick cushions set in cubelike, floor-based lacquered frames, capacious marble tables, wrapped thick leathercovered cushions in seating in heavy lacquered frames.

Among the Vignelli designs that have found their way into museum collections (in this case, the Museum of Modern Art) is the 1964 stackable dinnerware of bright, solid-color melamine, probably the first tableware in a low-budget material to make a style statement that is now nearly iconic.

Living room with Vignelli and Mies furniture, designers’ own duplex apartment, Upper East Side, ca. 1980

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Two-story working fireplace, Vignelli sofas, designers’ own duplex apartment, Upper East Side, ca. 1980

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View of living room from upper level, ca. 1980

VIGNELLI ASSOCIATES

View from living room to dining room with Roy Lichtenstein tapestry and Breuer chairs, designers’ own duplex apartment, Upper East Side, ca. 1980

231

STEVEN HOLL

A R C H I T E C T S A R E T R A I N E D to design buildings, but many of them apply their talents to interiors as well; in fact, many architectural careers develop from the inside out. So it was with Steven Holl, who came to public attention for his highly original designs of furniture and interiors, and like many whose ideas were in advance of their time, explored them first in drawings and in residential projects.

Holl was born in Bremerton, Washington, and graduated from the University of Washington before pursuing architectural studies in Rome and at the Architectural Association in London, where he studied with Rem Koolhaas. He returned to New York and established his practice in 1976.

His conceptual approach to design has elements in common with those of Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and other nontraditional practitioners of the late 20th century, whose early work was seen more on paper than in finished projects; his high-concept sketches and architectural renderings that illustrated the search for new ways of using architecture to transform space. The interiors he designed for clients open to new ideas and experiences upended conventional expectations of how a room could be formed. They explored aspects of porosity with open and closed partitions, intersecting forms, interacting colors, and unexpected materials.

236

In Holl’s interiors, architecture is experienced as a three-dimensional entity that interacts with the individual within it. Holl is interested in the process of the body’s passing through space, where one can walk through an interior and respond to several dimensions at once. The sense-provoking qualities are critical to comprehending his interiors, which become active rather than passive. To achieve this end, Holl manipulates panels, slices through walls, and cuts openings through which light passes at different angles, rendering a subtle interplay of colors reflected on walls and floors. The effect is exhilarating, although occasionally disorienting.

In the late 1980s, Holl came to public attention with iconoclastic furniture designs for Pace Collection, an upscale furniture showroom in Manhattan. He designed angular chairs and spare tables in industrial materials like copper, steel, and glass—a radical contrast to the company’s sumptuous, conservative executive furniture and elegant upholstered pieces. His use of glass to manipulate light foretold his later work with the material and with related effects in architecture.

Holl is a prolific and articulate writer and compelling speaker whose concept-driven approach has been captured in his many writings and lectures, and which he is passing on to future architects as well: he is a

tenured professor at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1981. He has written that he seeks an “experiential connection, a metaphysical link, a poetic link” between architecture and space; the same search informs and illuminates his interiors. Although they are conceived intellectually, Holl’s interiors, like his architecture, have an appeal that does not require understanding—it is visual, visceral, and emotional.

Looking past dividing wall into dining area of high-rise apartment, Midtown East, 1983

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Restructured open space with cut-away walls showing living and dining rooms, Holl-designed dining table, and angular ladder-back chairs, Midtown East apartment, 1983

238

STEVEN HOLL

View from living to dining room with Holl-designed rugs, Midtown East apartment, 1983

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MASTERS OF MODERNISM

View from living room toward entry showing pivoting wall sections, Midtown East apartment, 1983

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STEVEN HOLL

Living room with Josef Hoffmann red-lacquer platform sofa, table with drawers, and trompe l’oeil geometry in rug designed by Holl, Midtown East apartment, 1983

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PORTFOLIO

K ENNETH A LPERT

L EMBO B OHN (J OSEPH L EMBO

B ENTLEY L A R OSA S ALASKY

M ICHAEL L OVE

B RUCE B IERMAN

R UTH LYNFORD

C HARLES D AMGA

M AC II (M ICA E RTEGUN

M ICHAEL D E S ANTIS

E MILY M ALINO

J AMIE D RAKE

M ORSA (A NTONIO M ORELLO

D EDE D RAPER

T OM O’T OOLE

J OHN E LMO

O RBACH

F ORBES -E RGAS (S USAN F ORBES M ARIETTE H IMES G OMEZ T HAD H AYES E VELYN J ABLOW

AND J OEL

E RGAS )

AND

L AURA B OHN )

C HESBROUGH R AYNER )

AND

AND

D ONATO S AVOIE )

AND J ACOBSON (R ICHARD O RBACH AND

LYNN J ACOBSON )

T. H. R OBSJOHN -G IBBINGS S ILLS H UNIFORD A SSOCIATES (S TEPHEN S ILLS

AND J AMES

H UNIFORD )

R OBERT A. M. S TERN

255

KENNETH ALPERT

Living room with mirrored fireplace wall, white furniture against bold draperies, pillows, and Asian accents, Upper East Side apartment, ca. 1980

256

BENTLEY LA ROSA SALASKY

Living room with Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier chairs and tribal rug, Greenwich Village apartment, 1980

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BRUCE BIERMAN

Loft apartment with black-and-white scheme to set off art, Bellini chairs, lacquer table, and bleached floors, Union Square area, ca. 1980

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CHARLES DAMGA

Designer’s own duplex apartment and studio with floating staircase, mirrors, and Damga-designed seating, Midtown East, 1977

259

MICHAEL DE SANTIS

Living and dining areas with velvet-covered sectional seating, mirrored walls, and coffered-effect ceiling, Upper East Side apartment, ca. 1980

260

JAMIE DRAKE

Double-duty living room–studio with built-in bed, platform sofa, and monochromatic scheme, Gracie Terrace (East End Avenue), 1970s

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DEDE DRAPER

Rendering for interior of “House of Good Taste,” New York World’s Fair, 1964–65

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JOHN ELMO

Dining room with Danish Modern furniture and Pop Art accents, Westchester house, 1960s

Stepped-up living room with decorative trellis on arcades and hand-painted Oriental tree mural in music area, Westchester house, 1963

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BIOGRAPHIES

AFFRIME, MARVIN (d. 2003)

BENNETT, WARD (1917–2003)

BORN: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania University of Illinois, BFA 1950 CAREER HISTORY: Space Design Group (with Frank Failla), 1960 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1986

BORN: Howard Bennett Amsterdam, New York City Art study in Florence, Italy; Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris, France, 1937; under Hans Hoffmann, New York; apprenticed with Le Corbusier, Paris, 1947–1950 Served in U.S. Army Camouflage Corps, World War II CAREER HISTORY: Hattie Carnegie, 1943; I. Magnin; Bullock’s; established own practice, 1950; Pratt Institute, 1969; visiting professor, Yale University EXHIBITED: sculpture in Whitney Museum Annual, 1944; product design in Museum of Modern Art and Cooper-Hewitt National Museum permanent collections PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture for Lehigh, 1957; furniture and textiles for Brickel Associates, from 1963 on; china, glass, and silver for Sasaki and Tiffany; leather goods for Hermès RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1986

ALPERT, KENNETH BORN: New York City University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, 1972; New York University, MBA; New York School of Interior Design CAREER HISTORY: Kenneth Alpert Associates, 1975; KA Design Group, 2003 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

BALDWIN, BENJAMIN (1913–1993) BORN: Montgomery, Alabama Princeton University (junior year at Fontainebleau School of Arts, Paris), BArch 1935; Cranbrook Academy of Arts, MFA 1938 Served in U.S. Navy during World War II CAREER HISTORY: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (New York), 1946; Design Unit New York, 1948; Chicago practice, 1955; New York practice, 1963; correspondent, Arts & Architecture EXHIBITED: Chicago Merchandise Mart, 1950 PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture for Jack Lenor Larsen, 1973; fabrics and wall coverings for Woodson, 1976 RECOGNITION: awards for furniture design (with Harry Weese); “Organic Design” competition; Museum of Modern Art, 1940; textile designs (with William Machado) in “Good Design” exhibition; charter inductee, Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1985

BIERMAN, BRUCE BORN: New York City Rhode Island School of Design, BFA 1975; BArch 1976 CAREER HISTORY: established Bruce Bierman Design, Inc., 1977 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 2000

BILHUBER, JEFFREY Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, 1982 CAREER HISTORY: established Bilhuber & Associates, 1984 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House AUTHOR: Jeffrey Bilhuber’s Design Basics (2003)

279

BIOGRAPHIES

BOHN, LAURA BORN: Houston, Texas University of Texas; Pratt Institute, BFA 1977 CAREER HISTORY: Noel Jeffrey; Daroff Design; John Saladino; established LemboBohn (with partner Joseph Lembo), 1980; Laura Bohn Design Associates EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1998

BOTERO, SAMUEL BORN: Medellín, Colombia Pratt Institute, BFA 1968 CAREER HISTORY: Ford & Earl; established own practice, 1974 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

BRAY, ROBERT BORN: Ardmore, Oklahoma Oklahoma State University, Architectural Engineering; Parsons School of Design, 1965 CAREER HISTORY: Ford & Earl; Saphier, Lerner, Schindler Environetics; partner, Bray-Schaible with Michael Schaible, 1969–2003 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1990

BROMLEY, R SCOTT BORN: Canada McGill University, BArch 1963 CAREER HISTORY: Philip Johnson; Emery Roth & Sons, 1969; established own practice, 1974; partner, Bromley Jacobsen Architecture + Design, with Robin Jacobsen, 1977–1986; Bromley Caldari Architects, 1991–present EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1991

EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House AUTHOR: Total Design (2001) RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1997

DAMGA, CHARLES BORN: New York City Syracuse University, BA 1969; Brooklyn Law School, 1973; Parsons School of Design, BA 1976 CAREER HISTORY: Ford & Earl 1974–1975; established Damga Design, 1977 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

D’ARCY, BARBARA BORN: New York City College of New Rochelle, art major CAREER HISTORY: Alexander Smith Carpet Co., 1950–1952; Bloomingdale’s, 1952; fashion display coordinator, 1958; fashion director for home furnishings, 1971; director of merchandise presentation, 1973–1980s AUTHOR: Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating (1973) RECOGNITION: National Society of Interior Designers, design award, 1954; American Society of Interior Designers, Elsie de Wolfe Award, 1979; American Society of Interior Designers Designer of Distinction, 1981; charter inductee, Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1985

De SANTIS, MICHAEL (d. 1999) BORN: Yonkers, New York ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

DEXTER DESIGN Partnership, Barbara Ross and Barbara Schwartz, 1972–1975

BUCHSBAUM, ALAN (1935–1987) BORN: Georgia Georgia Institute of Technology, BS 1958; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BArch 1961 CAREER HISTORY: Conklin Rossant; Warner, Burns, Toan & Lunde; Design Coalition, 1967

CLODAGH BORN: Ireland; emigrated to the United States, 1983 CAREER HISTORY: successful fashion designer in Dublin by age 17; changed focus to interior design; established Clodagh Ross Williams, 1983; later, Clodagh Design International 280

DONGHIA, ANGELO (1935–1985) BORN: Vandergrift, Pennsylvania Parsons School of Design, 1958 CAREER HISTORY: Yale Burge, 1959; partner, Burge-Donghia, 1966; established & Vice Versa, fabric and wall coverings, 1968; Donghia Associates, 1970; Donghia Furniture, 1978 PRODUCT DESIGN: bedding for J. P. Stevens; furniture for Kroehler; giftware for Toscany; fabrics for Bloomcraft, Mastercraft, and Spectrum RECOGNITION: charter inductee (posthumous), Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1985

BIOGRAPHIES

DONOVAN, T. KELLER BORN: Short Hills, New Jersey Bethany College; Parsons School of Design CAREER HISTORY: Bloomingdale’s, 1972–1975; Tom O’Toole Inc., 1975–1976; Easton & LaRocca, 1976–1977; established T. Keller Donovan Inc., 1977 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

DRAKE, JAMIE BORN: Connecticut Parsons School of Design, BFA 1978 CAREER HISTORY: Jamie Drake Associates, 1978 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 2003

DRAPER, DEDE BORN: New York City Brooklyn Academy of Arts (now Brooklyn Museum Art School); New York School of Interior Design, 1950 CAREER HISTORY: Intramural Inc.; partner, Shaw & Draper Inc., with Otho Shaw, 1952–1986; designed Contemporary House of Good Taste for New York World’s Fair, 1964–1965; sculptor, 1986 to present ORGANIZATIONS: National Society of Interior Designers, president, 1962; American Society of Interior Designers, president, chairman, education foundation RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow, life member

PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture for Knoll, 1980 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1986

DWORK, MELVIN BORN: Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City Art Institute; Parsons School of Design, 1945–1946 Served in U.S. Navy during World War II CAREER HISTORY: James Pendleton, 1946–1949; independent practice from 1950; partner, Altman-Dwork, 1956–1960; Yale Burge Associates (later Burge-Donghia), 1960; established own practice, 1970 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1993

ELMO, JOHN SEBASTIAN BORN: New York City Parsons School of Design, 1948–1951 Served in U.S. Army during Korean War CAREER HISTORY: established own practice, 1955; faculty, Pace University and Fashion Institute of Technology; established South Bay Fabrics, fabric and wall covering firm, 1969 (closed in 1993) PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture for Ethan Allen, Drexel-Heritage, Molla, and Meadowcraft ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers, president, New York chapter, 1971–1973, 1996 RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow

ERGAS, JOEL DRAPER, DOROTHY (1889–1969) BORN: Dorothy Tuckerman, Tuxedo Park, New York.

CAREER HISTORY: established Architectural Clearing House (later renamed Dorothy Draper & Co. Inc.), 1925; radio program, Lines About Living, beginning 1940; directed Good Housekeeping Studio of Architecture, Building & Furniture, 1941; sold firm to Carleton Varney and Leon Hegwood, 1960; designed Dream House for New York World’s Fair, 1964; Dorothy Draper Enterprises, 1960–1967 AUTHOR: Decorating Is Fun (1939); Entertaining Is Fun (1941); 365 Shortcuts to Home Decorating (1965); syndicated column, Ask Dorothy Draper, until 1967 PRODUCT DESIGN: F. Schumacher & Co. (fabrics); Syracuse China; Heritage House (furniture)

BORN: Bronx, New York Queens College, BA; interior design studies, Pratt Institute CAREER HISTORY: Eleanor Le Maire Associates, 1960–1970; partner, Forbes-Ergas with Susan Forbes, 1970 ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow

ERTEGUN, MICA BORN: Turkey CAREER HISTORY: established MAC II with Chesbrough Rayner, 1967 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1993

D’URSO, JOSEPH PAUL

FORBES, SUSAN

BORN: Newark, New Jersey Interior Design, Pratt Institute, 1965; American Institute of Designers scholarship, 1965 CAREER HISTORY: Ward Bennett; established own practice, 1967; closed New York office, 1987 (now headquartered on Long Island); faculty, Pratt Institute, 1968–1979

BORN: Glendale, California Parsons School of Design, 1963 CAREER HISTORY: Eleanor Le Maire Associates, 1963–1970; established ForbesErgas with Joel Ergas, 1970; faculty, Fashion Institute of Technology 281

BIOGRAPHIES

ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers; International Institute of Interior Designers; Interior Design Educators Council

FORMICA, MICHAEL BORN: Hartford, Connecticut Rhode Island School of Design, BFA (industrial design) 1976 CAREER HISTORY: established Michael Formica Inc., 1980

FRANKFURT, SUZIE (d. 2005) BORN: Suzanne Allen, Louisiana; married Steven Frankfurt Stanford University CAREER HISTORY: Young & Rubicam; independent design practice, 1960s–1970s

GWATHMEY, CHARLES BORN: Charlotte, North Carolina University of Pennsylvania, 1959; Yale University, School of Architecture, BArch, 1962 CAREER HISTORY: Edward L. Barnes Architect; established Gwathmey-Siegel with Robert Siegel, 1968 PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture, Knoll; tableware, Swid Powell (1984); silver, Alessi (1984) RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988. American Academy of Arts & Letters 1976; NY Chapter AIA Medal of Honor 1983; fellow AIA 1981; instructor, Pratt Institute (1965–91), Princeton, Columbia, UCLA; visiting professor, Yale School of Architecture, Harvard School of Architecture

HAGAN, VICTORIA FRIEDMANN, ARNOLD BORN: Nuremberg, Germany Columbia University; Pratt Institute, BFA 1953, MS 1960; Union Institute, PhD 1976 CAREER HISTORY: professor, chairman (department of interior/environmental design), Pratt Institute, 1955–1972; associate dean (humanities and fine arts), professor (design), University of Massachusetts, Amherst, from 1972; established Amherst Design Associates, 1980 AUTHOR: A Critical Study of Interior Design Education (1968); coauthor, An Introduction to Architectural Interiors (1976), and two others ORGANIZATIONS: founding member, National Council for Interior Design Qualification; founding member, Interior Design Educators Council; Foundation for Interior Design Education Research RECOGNITION: first prize, design contributions, IKEA Foundation, 1989

BORN: New York City Parsons School of Design, 1985 CAREER HISTORY: partner, Feldman & Hagan Interiors with Simone Feldman; established Victoria Hagan Interiors, 1991; Victoria Hagan Home, 2002 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 2004

HAYES, THAD BORN: Marksville, Louisiana Louisiana State University, 1978; Parsons School of Design CAREER HISTORY: Bray-Schaible Design Inc., 1981–1984; established Thad Hayes Inc., 1984

HERBERT, ALBERT (1928–2008) GOMEZ, MARIETTE HIMES BORN: Mariette Margaret Himes, Alpena, Michigan; married Raymond Gomez Rhode Island School of Design, BFA; New York School of Interior Design CAREER HISTORY: Parish-Hadley; Edward Durell Stone; established own practice, 1977 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House AUTHOR: Rooms: Creating Luxurious, Livable Spaces (2003) RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1994

GREEN, GAIL BORN: New York City City College of New York, BA/MA 1972; Columbia University, MS 1979, PhD 1981 CAREER HISTORY: David Estreich Architect, 1980–1985; established own practice, 1985 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House ORGANIZATIONS: Decorators Club, board member 282

BORN: Detroit, Michigan Pratt Institute (industrial design), 1950 Served in U.S. Air Force, 1952–1956 CAREER HISTORY: Knoll, 1950–1952; Saphier Lerner Schindler, 1956–1958; established Albert Herbert Inc., 1958 PRODUCT DESIGN: carpets, V’Soske, 1960s; furniture, Eppinger, 1970s; furniture, Baker, 1980s; glassware, Salviati, 1970s ORGANIZATIONS: American Institute of Decorators, president, New York chapter, 1973 RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow; S. M. Hexter Awards, first and second prizes, 1968

BIOGRAPHIES

HEYER, PAUL OTTO (1937–1997) BORN: Brighton, England College of Arts, 1958; University of Michigan, March 1961 CAREER HISTORY: Pratt Institute, professor of architecture, later dean of School of Architecture, 1968–1989; president, New York School of Interior Design, 1989–1996 AUTHOR: Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America (1966)

HOLL, STEVEN BORN: Bremerton, Washington University of Washington; architecture studies in Rome; Architectural Association, London CAREER HISTORY: established Steven Holl Architects, 1976; faculty, Columbia University, 1981 to present AUTHOR: Anchoring (1989), Parallax (2000), Idea and Phenomena (2002), Architecture Spoken (2007) PRODUCT DESIGN: Pace Collection, 1980s RECOGNITION: American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor, 1997; Alvar Aalto Medal, 1998; American Academy of Arts & Letters, 2000; Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award, 2002

AUTHOR: Design Diary (2001) EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse

KALIL, Michael (1944–1991) BORN: Lowell, Massachusetts Pratt Institute CAREER HISTORY: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; NASA; instructor, Parsons School of Design, 1960s

LEFF, NAOMI (1939–2005) BORN: Bronx, New York Cortland, BS; University of Wisconsin-Madison, MA; Pratt Institute, Architecture, MS Environmental Design CAREER HISTORY: established Naomi Leff & Assoc., 1980 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1991

LEMBO, JOSEPH

BORN: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania New York University, 1940 CAREER HISTORY: Bloomingdales, 1974–1976; House Beautiful, 1977–1978; L’Officiel, 1982–1984; established American Vernacular decorating practice, 1973

BORN: New York Long Island University; Parsons School of Design (environmental design), 1978 CAREER HISTORY: John Saladino Inc.; partner, Lembo-Bohn Design, with Laura Bohn, 1980–1995 ORGANIZATIONS: Creative Intelligence Associates (international design consortium), founding member RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1998

JACOBSEN, ROBIN (1941–1986)

LOVE, MICHAEL

BORN: Salt Lake City, Utah Graduated with fine arts degree CAREER HISTORY: partner, Bromley Jacobsen Architecture + Design with R Scott Bromley, 1977–1986

BORN: New Jersey Traphagen School of Design, 1945 CAREER HISTORY: NY Port Authority, Bankers Trust Co., Ashland Oil, Quantum Design, 1978 ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers, president, New York chapter, 1995 RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow

JABLOW, EVELYN (1919–1997)

JACOBSON, LYNN BORN: Lynn Kaplan, Fort Riley, Kansas New York University; Parsons School of Design (graphic and interior design), 1968 CAREER HISTORY: Creative Perspectives, 1969; partner, Ohrbach & Jacobson, 1970–1990; established Lynn Jacobson & Associates, 1990 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

JEFFREY, NOEL BORN: New York Prelaw studies; Pratt Institute, BFA (interior design) 1970; Columbia University, architecture studies CAREER HISTORY: established Noel Jeffrey Inc., 1971

LYNFORD, RUTH K. BORN: Ruth B. Kahn, St. Louis, Missouri Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri), BArch 1946 CAREER HISTORY: York & Sawyer Architects; Paul McCobb; North Shore Galleries; established R.K. Lynford, 1950; partner, Lynford Mayo Associates; principal, Lynford Ltd. ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers; Interior Design Licensing in New York; Interior Designers for Legislation in New York, founder

283

BIOGRAPHIES

MAC II Partnership, Chesbrough Rayner and Mica Ertegun, established 1967

V’Soske; lamps, Nessen Lighting RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1996

MALINO, EMILY (1925–2007)

MONTOYA, JUAN

BORN: New York Vassar College, 1946 CAREER HISTORY: department store window displays; established Emily Malino & Associates, New York, 1948; syndicated decorating column (ca. 1960s–70s); later senior designer with Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum; Vice President, Perkins & Will; partner, Malino & Metcalf; retired 1998; wrote decorating column for United Features Syndicate, 1970–1984; member, National Fine Arts Commission and President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities.

BORN: BogotA, Colombia Universidad La Gran Colombia (architecture), 1965; Parsons School of Design, 1972; Italy, furniture design studies CAREER HISTORY: Ford & Earl (New York), dental office design; established own practice, 1975 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988; Architectural Digest AD 100

MARINO, PETER BORN: New York City Cornell University, BArch CAREER HISTORY: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; George Nelson; I.M. Pei/Cossutta & Ponte; established Peter Marino Architect, 1978 PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture, Poltrona Frau RECOGNITION: American Institute of Architects, fellow; AIA Merit in Design and National Honor awards; Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1992

MEIER, RICHARD BORN: Newark, New Jersey Cornell University, BArch 1957 CAREER HISTORY: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Marcel Breuer; established Richard Meier & Partners LLP, 1963; one of the “New York Five” architects in the late 1960s, with Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and John Hejduk PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture, Knoll; tableware, Swid Powell (1984); silver, Alessi (1981) RECOGNITION: American Institute of Architects, fellow (1989) and numerous AIA National Honor and New York City awards; Pritzker Prize, 1984; Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Gold Medal, 1989; American Academy of Arts & Sciences, fellow, 1995

MINDEL, LEE BORN: Perth Amboy, New Jersey University of Pennsylvania, 1973; Harvard School of Architecture, 1976 CAREER HISTORY: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Rogers, Butler, Burgun; established Shelton, Mindel & Associates, with Peter Shelton, 1978 EXHIBITED: American Institute of Architecture, San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts; National Academy of Design; Houston Museum of Fine Arts PRODUCT DESIGN: fixtures, Waterworks; furniture, Jack Lenor Larsen; rugs, 284

OHRBACH, RICHARD (d. 1990) CAREER HISTORY: Creative Perspectives, ca. 1960; partner, Ohrbach & Jacobson with Lynn Jacobson, 1970–1990 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

O’TOOLE, TOM BORN: Shenandoah, Pennsylvania Villanova University; Columbia University graduate school CAREER HISTORY: store design, Bonwit-Teller; Polo; established Tom O’Toole Inc., 1971 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

PATINO, BOB (1948–1998) BORN: New York City CAREER HISTORY: Tressard; Connaissance Fabrics; partner, Patino-Winkler, with Bebe Winkler; partner, Patino-Wolf, with Vicente Wolf, 1976; established Bob Patino & Company, 1988 PRODUCT DESIGN: flatware (Sasaki), among others

PEPPER, ELEANOR (1904–1997) BORN: New York City Barnard College, BS 1924; Massachusetts Institute of Architecture, BA (architecture) 1928; Diplôme des Etudes Superieures, Sorbonne, Paris, 1933 CAREER HISTORY: Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith Architects, 1945–1950; chairman, Department of Interior Design, Pratt Institute, 1951–1959 (on faculty until 1970); associate editor, House & Garden; professor, Architecture Department, New York Institute of Technology; head, Interior Design Department, Stevens College, Missouri; continued to lecture into 1980s ORGANIZATIONS: American Institute of Architects

BIOGRAPHIES

RAYNER, CHESBROUGH (d. 1998) BORN: New York City CAREER HISTORY: established MAC II with Mica Ertegun, 1967 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1993

REY, LUIS BORN:, Lima, Peru New York University, Parsons School of Design, 1967 CAREER HISTORY: McMillen Inc, 1972 to present, vice president and senior designer 1976, president 2002

ROBSJOHN-GIBBINGS, TERENCE HAROLD (1905–1976) BORN: London, England.

University of Liverpool; BS Architecture, London University.

CAREER HISTORY: Established decorating studio in New York 1930. Designed furniture for Widdecomb Furniture Company, Baker Furniture, Eleftherios Saridis (Athens), also fabric and accessories.

AUTHOR: Goodbye, Mr. Chippendale (1944), Mona Lisa’s Mustache (1947), Homes of the Brave (1954), Furniture of Classic Greece (1963).

RECOGNITION: American Institute of Interior Designers Elsie de Wolfe Award, 1962.

AUTHOR: Style by Saladino (2000) PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture, Dunbar and Baker, Knapp & Tubbs ORGANIZATIONS: board of directors, Parsons School of Design; New York School of Interior Design; Sir John Soane Museum Foundation RECOGNITION: charter inductee, Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1985 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

SALTZMAN, RENNY (1930–2000) BORN: Brooklyn, New York New York University; New York School of Interior Design CAREER HISTORY: Renny Saltzman Interiors Inc., 1956 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

SALVATOR, SCOTT BORN: Rome, New York Villanova University, BS; Delaware Law School, JD; Fashion Institute of Technology; Parsons School of Design CAREER HISTORY: Mario Buatta Inc., 1987; Gary Crain & Associates Inc., 1987–1990; Robert Metzger Inc., 1991–1992; established Scott Salvator Inc., 1992 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

ROLLAND, DENNIS

SCHAEFER, BERTHA (1895–1971)

BORN: Reading, Pennsylvania Michigan State University, BA (interior design) 1964 Served in U.S. Army, 1965–1966 CAREER HISTORY: Marshall Field, 1964; John Wanamaker, Philadelphia, decorating studio, 1967–1974; own practice 1975–1978; George Clarkson, 1978–1980; Mark Hampton, 1980–1987; established Dennis Rolland Inc., 1987 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

Mississippi State College for Women; Parsons School of Design, 1924 CAREER HISTORY: Bertha Schaefer Interiors, 1924; Bertha Schaefer Gallery of Contemporary Art, 1944

ROSS, BARBARA HAUBEN BORN: Brooklyn, New York Pratt Interior Design, 1961; studied architecture, Columbia University CAREER HISTORY: W. & J. Sloane; Space Design Group; ran own business for two years; Dexter Design with Barbara Schwartz 1972–1985; Barbara Hauben Ross/BHR Design Group EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

SALADINO, JOHN BORN: Kansas City, Missouri University of Notre Dame; Yale School of Art & Architecture CAREER HISTORY: architect Piero Sartogo, Rome; established John F. Saladino Inc., 1972; Saladino Furniture Inc., 1986

SCHAIBLE, MICHAEL BORN: Oakley, Kansas University of Colorado, BFA; Parsons School of Design, 1965 CAREER HISTORY: Ford & Earl; Saphier, Lerner, Schindler Environetics; partner, Bray-Schaible, with Robert Bray, 1969–2003 RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1990

SCHWARTZ, BARBARA BORN: Barbara Gibson, Queens, New York; married Eugene Schwartz New York School of Interior Design CAREER HISTORY: partner, Dexter Studio; Dexter Design, with Barbara Ross, 1972–1985; established Barbara Schwartz, Inc. EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse

SHAW, OTHO (d. 1998) BORN: Texas Served in U.S. Air Force during World War II 285

BIOGRAPHIES

Feather & Feather School of Fine and Applied Arts (Houston); Parsons School of Design, 1949; Ecole D’Art Americaines, Fontainebleau, France CAREER HISTORY: Rose Cumming; partner, Shaw & Draper, with Dede Draper, 1952 ORGANIZATIONS: National Society of Interior Designers; American Society of Interior Designers, fellow, president

SHELTON, PETER BORN: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania, 1968; Pratt Institute, 1975 CAREER HISTORY: Edward Durell Stone & Associates; Emery Roth & Sons; partner, Shelton, Mindel & Associates, with Lee Mindel, 1978 PRODUCT DESIGN: collections for Waterworks, Jack Lenor Larsen V’Soske, and Nessen Lighting RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1996

SIEGEL, ROBERT BORN: New York City Pratt Institute, BArch 1952; Harvard University, March 1963 CAREER HISTORY: Edward L. Barnes, architect; established Gwathmey-Siegel with Charles Gwathmey, 1968 ORGANIZATIONS: board of trustees, Pratt Institute RECOGNITION: American Institute of Architects, fellow, 1981; New York Chapter AIA, medal of honor, 1983; Pratt Institute Centennial alumni award, 1988; Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988

EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 2006

STERN, ROBERT A.M. BORN: Robert Arthur Morton Stern, New York City Columbia University BA 1960; Yale University March, 1965 CAREER HISTORY: partnership with John S. Hagmann, 1969–1977; established Robert A.M. Stern Architects 1977; director, Center for Study of American Architecture at Columbia University, 1984–88, and Director of Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University. Dean, Yale School of Architecture, present. Author of several books, and has had many books on his works published. Co-author, New York 1900 (1983); creator of TV series and book, Pride of Place: Building the American Dream (1985–6); New York 1930 (1987), New York 1960 (1995), New York 2000 (2006) RECOGNITION: fellow, American Institute of Architects, AIA medal of honor (1984); Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1993; represented United States at Venice Biennale in 1976, 1980, 1996; has lectured extensively in United States and abroad.

TATE, ALLEN CAREER HISTORY: Parsons School of Design, 1961–1981; instructor in design, coordinator of third-year program in interior design, 1969–1970; chairman, department of environmental design (interior design, architecture, industrial design, product design, landscape architecture, urban design), 1970–1981

VAN HATTUM, PETER J. SILLS, STEPHEN BORN: Durant, Oklahoma North Texas University, 1978; studied in Paris CAREER HISTORY: Sills Huniford Associates, with James Huniford, 1984 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House COAUTHOR: Dwellings (2003)

BORN: Utrecht, Netherlands University of Utrecht CAREER HISTORY: Peter Van Hattum Interiors 1972–1987; partner, Van Hattum & Simmons, Inc., with Harold Simmons, 1987 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

VAN KOERT, JOHN O. (1912–1998) SIMMONS, HAROLD R. BORN: Clarksdale, Mississippi University of Mississippi, BFA 1961; Parsons School of Design, 1965 CAREER HISTORY: Alfred Easton Poor Architects, 1965–1966; Parish-Hadley Inc. 1966–1987; partner, Van Hattum & Simmons Inc., with Peter Van Hattum, 1987 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House

SISKIN, PAUL BORN: California Parsons School of Design, BFA CAREER HISTORY: John Saladino; established Siskin Valls with Perucho Valls, 1984 286

BORN: Manitoba, Canada University of Wisconsin CAREER HISTORY: interiors, furniture, and product designer

VIGNELLI, LELLA BORN: Italy University of Venice, School of Architecture, fellowship; Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture CAREER HISTORY: Unimark International, Milan, head of interiors department, 1965; New York, 1966; partner, Vignelli Associates, with Massimo Vignelli, New York, beginning in 1971

BIOGRAPHIES

PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture for Castiglioni, Sunar, and Poltronova ORGANIZATIONS: Decorators Club; Industrial Designers Society of America RECOGNITION: American Institute of Architects, industrial arts medal, 1973; American Institute of Graphic Arts, gold medal, 1983; Parsons School of Design, honorary doctorate, 1983; Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988

VIGNELLI, MASSIMO BORN: Italy Politecnico di Milano; Istituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice; Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture, fellowship CAREER HISTORY: Unimark International, Milan, with Jan Doblin and Bob Noorda; opened New York office, 1966; partner, Vignelli Associates, with Lella Vignelli, New York, beginning in 1971 PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture for Castiglioni, Sunar, and Poltronova RECOGNITION: Compasso d’Oro, 1964; American Institute of Architects, industrial arts medal, 1973; American Institute of Graphic Arts, gold medal, 1983; Parsons School of Design, honorary doctorate, 1983; Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988

WORMLEY, EDWARD J. (1907–1995) BORN: Oswego, Illinois Correspondence courses; New York School of Interior Design, 1923–1924; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1926–1928 CAREER HISTORY: Marshall Field, 1928–1930; Berkey & Gay, 1930–1931; Dunbar Furniture Company, 1931–1968; faculty, Parsons School of Design, 1955 PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture, Dunbar; fabrics, Schiffer RECOGNITION: American Institute of Interior Designers, Elsie de Wolfe Award, 1962; Total Design Award 1978; American Society of Interior Designers, designer of distinction, 1983

ZABRISKIE, MICHAEL BORN: Wichita Falls, Texas Syracuse University, 1975; Parsons School of Design, 1978 CAREER HISTORY: Mario Buatta Inc., 1981–1983; McMillen Inc., 1984–1991; Parish-Hadley, Inc., 1992–1993; Scott Salvator, Inc., 1994–present

ZAMBONINI, GIUSEPPE (1942–1990) WOLF, VICENTE BORN: Cuba, emigrated to United States, 1963 CAREER HISTORY: Design showrooms; freelance for Melvin Dwork and Angelo Donghia; partner, Patino-Wolf, with Bob Patino, 1976–1988; established solo practice, 1988 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House AUTHOR: books on design and photography PRODUCT DESIGN: furniture, Henredon and Niedermeier; lighting, Sirmos; rugs, Tufenkian; tableware and accessories RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1998

BORN: Verona, Italy; emigrated to United StateS University of Verona CAREER HISTORY: dean, New York School of Interior Design, 1972–1975; established Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture; director, 1988–1990

ZEFF, MARK BORN: South Africa Chelsea Design College, London, Architecture; Royal College of Art, London, BArch CAREER HISTORY: March Friedman & Associates; the Walker Group; established Zeff Design, 1985

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS Abercrombie, Stanley. A Century of Interior Design, 1900–2000. New York: Rizzoli International, 2003.

———. Interior Design and Decoration, 6th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.

Alpern, Andrew. New York’s Fabulous Luxury Apartments. New York: Dover Publications, 1975.

Anscombe, Isabelle. A Woman’s Touch. New York: Viking Penguin, 1984.

Aves, Pirrie. Best: From the Interior Design Magazine Hall of Fame. Grand Rapids, MI: Vitae Publications, 1992.

Baldwin, Benjamin. Benjamin Baldwin: An Autobiography in Design. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.

Baldwin, Billy. Billy Baldwin: An Autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1985.

———. Billy Baldwin Decorates. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.

———. Billy Baldwin Remembers. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.

Banham, Joanna, ed. Encyclopedia of Interior Design. London/Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

Bartlett, Apple Parish. Sister Parish: The Life of the Legendary American Interior Decorator, Mrs. Henry Parish II. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

Brown, Erica. Interior Views: Design at Its Best. New York: Viking Press, 1980.

———. Sixty Years of Interior Design: The World of McMillen. New York: Viking Press, 1982.

Byars, Mel, ed. The Design Encyclopedia. Somerset, NJ: John Wiley, 1994.

———. The Museum of Modern Art Design Encyclopedia. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2004.

Calloway, Stephen. Twentieth-Century Decoration. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.

Campbell, Nina, and Caroline Seebohm. Elsie de Wolfe, A Decorative Life. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1992.

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Ching, Francis. Interior Design Illustrated. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1987.

Clark, Robert Judson, et al. Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision. New York: Abrams, in association with Detroit Institute of Arts and Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983.

D’Arcy, Barbara. Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. de Wolfe, Elsie. The House in Good Taste. New York: The Century Co., 1914. Reprint, New York: Rizzoli, 2004.

Diamonstein, Barbaralee. Interior Design: The New Freedom. New York: Rizzoli, 1982.

Donghia, Sherri, and Karen Lehrman. Donghia: The Artistry of Luxury and Style. New York: Bulfinch, 2006.

Esten, John, Rose Gilbert, and George Chinsee. Manhattan Style. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1990.

Faulkner, Ray, and Sarah Faulkner. Inside Today’s Home. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1975.

Fehrmann, Cherie, and Kenneth Fehrmann. Postwar Interior Design, 1945–60. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1987.

Friedmann, Arnold. Interior Design: An Introduction to Architectural Interiors. New York: Elsevier, 1982.

Gomez, Mariette Himes. Rooms: Creating Luxurious, Livable Spaces. New York: Regan Books, 2003.

Gray, Susan. Designers on Designers: The Inspiration Behind Great Interiors. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Greer, Michael. Inside Design. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962.

Hampton, Mark. Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

———. Mark Hampton on Decorating. New York: Random House, 1989.

Harling, Robert, et al. The House & Garden Book of Romantic Rooms. Salem, NH: Salem House, 1985.

A slipcased limited edition of 400 numbered copies of New York Interior Design 1935–1985, VOLUMES I AND II, includes original renderings by

Albert Hadley (VOLUME I) &

R Scott Bromley (VOLUME II) created especially for this work

VOLUME II JUDITH GURA is professor and faculty member at the New history program. A graduate of Cornell University, she has a Master of Arts degree in design history from the Bard Gradu-

Gura

York School of Interior Design, where she directs the design

ate Center. She has taught at Pratt Institute and FIT, and has

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN 1935–1985

contributed to exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the WhitGura is the author of Sourcebook of Scandinavian Furniture: Designs for the 21st Century; Guide to Period Styles for Interiors; Harvey Probber: Modernist Furniture, Artworks and Design; and Edward Wormley: The Other Face of Modernism. She is a contributing editor for Art+Auction magazine, and frequently lectures about design.

Acanthus Press Visual Library presents worlds of culture, art, and design through images.

ALSO AVAILABLE: New York Interior Design, 1935–1985: Inventors of Tradition (Volume I) Judith Gura FORTHCOMING: New York Interior Design, 1985–2010: Creators of the Contemporary (Volume III) Judith Gura Los Angeles Interior Design, 1935–1985 Jo Lauria

San Francisco Interior Design, 1935–1985 Jo Lauria

VOLUME II

MASTERS OF MODERNISM

Judith Gura

Between 1935 and 1985, the design community in New York was thriving. Inspired by distinguished educators and promoted in style magazines and illustrated books, interior designers acquired elite status and social prominence, often equal to that of their illustrious clients.

When fashion-conscious urban professionals joined New York’s Old World establishment, new modes of urban living evolved.

Along with high-rise apartments, penthouses, and town houses, the downtown loft developed as a new genre for Manhattan luxury living. The challenges presented by these raw spaces led to inventive design solutions and decorative treatments.

New York Interior Design, 1935–1985: Masters of Modernism brings together over 250 photographs of exceptional interiors by practitioners who boldly challenged traditional concepts of design.

Among featured designers are the iconoclastic Alan Buchsbaum, who pioneered such unorthodox concepts as exposed cooking areas, bathtubs out in the open, and was the first to treat old tin ceilings, pipes, and structural beams as decorative elements; the

1935–1985

London Interior Design, 1925–1985 Penny Sparke

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN 1935–1985 MASTERS OF MODERNISM

NEW YORK INTERIOR DESIGN

ney Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

ACANTHUS PRESS VISUAL LIBRARY

incomparable Barbara D’Arcy, whose trendsetting model rooms for Bloomingdale’s electrified the 1960s and 1970s; the color virtuoso Juan Montoya; and the architectural firm Shelton, Mindel, known for elegant minimalist spaces approached with a curator’s eye.

New York Interior Design, 1935–1985: Masters of Modernism is the companion volume to New York Interior Design, 1935–1985:

Front cover: Living room by Steven Holl with Josef Hoffmann red-lacquer platform sofa, table with drawer, and trompe l’oeil geometry in rug, Midtown East apartment, 1983. ©Paul Warchol Back cover: Mirror-walled living room by Juan Montoya with view of Central Park, Fifth Avenue apartment, ca. 1975. Courtesy of Jaime Ardiles-Arce Endpapers: “Straight As An Arrow” from & VICE VERSA, a textile and wallcovering design company founded by Angelo Donghia.

Inventors of Tradition.

Judith Gura ACANTHUS PRESS VISUAL LIBRARY