collage || tribute
In Memoriam R. Thomas Gunkelman, Minneapolis’s bon vivant interior designer, died on May 21, at age 81. | BY ALYSSA FORD
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studios of the 1960s and ’70s: Robert Lennox, om Gunkelman liked to say Robert Sidenberg and the Dayton’s Studio. At that it was impossible to tell if its height, Gunkelmans employed 16 interior he had designed a room; that designers plus clerical staff and assistants, there was no “Gunkelman and Gunkelman himself took on projects style,” per se. all over the country. He often incorporated And yet, there was perhaps no interior taupe walls, linen wall panels and sisal designer in Minneapolis who so completely floor coverings — a neutral palette to better and enthusiastically embraced the classic showcase the classic, modern pieces he loved. modern heroes: Eames, Arne Jacobsen, Le Corbusier and all things Knoll. Ludwig “Tom was always very interested in educating people about design and Mies van der Rohe, the Bauhaus master probably sold more Barcelona chairs than and WWII-era German refugee, was his all-time exemplar, and Gunkelman filled anyone I ever knew,” says Skogmo. his 1,100-square-foot condo with MiesGunkelman implicitly understood the designed furniture, including a custom mystique of his work and played the part in exquisite Etro shirts and Louis Vuitton grouping hand-built in the 1960s by one of Mies’ Chicago disciples. shoes. Always the gastronome, he dined in It was his taste for the modernistic the finest restaurants in the world and that first brought him to light, in farmalways kept a fresh change of shirts “Tom was always very interested in swept Fargo, North Dakota. The ninth — the better to enjoy his opulent and last child of a grain-and-seed meals. “He was an excellent cook, but educating people about design and executive and his wife, Gunkelman an even better eater,” says interior probably sold more Barcelona chairs was raised with a live-in servant and designer Carol Belz. “There was a bit a mother who had the family home than anyone I ever knew.”— TALLA SKOGMO of North Dakota farm boy in him.” A lifelong bachelor, he traveled done up by Levoy’s, a top interiordesign firm. When he opened his first the world in the company of friends retail shop in 1962, Gunkelman filled it and delighted in lavish adventures. with Knoll and Eero Saarinen furniture He once employed a helicopter in interior-design clients in the Twin Cities. But the south of France just to have lunch in a and African-inspired fabrics by Jack Lenor it was still a massive leap of faith to open his Larsen, as if to declare that Fargo wasn’t neighboring town. grand studio on Nicollet Mall in 1967, in the some cow town. But even as he lived the life of the bon place where Brit’s Pub now stands. “I remember the first time I stepped vivant, his design mantra was always “He was still an unknown,” says interior into his shop, with all the fine things,” restraint. With Larry Mork’s retirement, designer Talla Skogmo, who worked with says Wes Kuske, who at the time was a Gunkelman was the last working interior Gunkelman for 27 and a half years. “But he traveling rug salesman. “I said to myself, designer of his generation. Karen McKay made the studio a jewel box, and he put on ‘My God, is this Fargo?’ ” and Kari Solyntjes, will continue Tom terrific fanfare and held lots and lot of parties. Against every odd, the 30-something Gunkelman’s legacy — carrying on the He made people take notice.” Gunkelman, in his oval-framed, oversized business, the name sake and his design As his reputation grew, the studio glasses and three-piece suits, began attracting sense. flourished and rivaled even the great design
an interior design icon Tom Gunkelman helped reshape the design world in the Twin Cities and across the country. Artful-LivingMag.com Artful Living
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