New York Interior Design, 2 vols., ltd art

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NEW YO RK INTERIO R DESIGN 1935–1985 VOLUME I

INVENTORS OF TRADITION

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 978-0-926494-51-0 (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: “Victoria” wallpaper, © Mario Buatta, for Sterling Prints FRONTISPIECE: Bedroom with raised ceiling and skylight. Empire furniture, grand canopy framing bed on platform, hand-painted concrete floor, Kips Bay Show House interior, 1980s. Robert Metzger, designer. Courtesy of Phillip H. Ennis


In the 1980s and 1990s, some of the brightest stars of the interior design world—and others who had not yet had their chance to shine—were lost to AIDS. This book is dedicated to their memory.



R OOM

FOR J ON

T HORNWOOD , N EW Y ORK (W EST S IDE )

Albert Hadley Mixed media, 2008

Limited edition of 400 numbered copies No.


CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Preface 11 Introduction 13

IN THE PARSONS STYLE 59

9

Eleanor McMillen Brown 60 William Pahlmann 66 Melanie Kahane

THE HISTORY 16

72

Michael Greer 78 Billy Baldwin

THE LEGENDS 27

84

McMillen Inc. 94

Elsie de Wolfe 28 Ruby Ross Wood 30

THE EUROPEAN TRADITIONALISTS 105

Rose Cumming 32

James Amster 106

Elsie Cobb Wilson 34

Ellen Lehman McCluskey 114

Nancy McClelland 36

Yale Burge 120

THE FIRST LADIES 39 Elisabeth Draper

126

40

Mrs. Henry (Sister) Parish II Dorothy Draper

Joseph Braswell

52

44

THE ANGLOPHILES 135 Irvine & Fleming 136 7


Mario Buatta

THE CHAMELEONS 249

144

David Easton 150

Stephen Mallory 250 Albert Hadley 258

THE COMPOSERS 159 Carleton Varney 160

Mark Hampton 270 Peter Marino 280

Zajac & Callahan 166 Harrison Cultra

176

David Eugene Bell Jed Johnson

PORTFOLIO 287

186

194

THE SHOWMEN 203 David Barrett 204 Denning & Fourcade Ruben de Saavedra

212 226

Tom Britt 236 Robert Metzger 242

Ron Bricke, George Clarkson, Elissa Cullman, Susan Zises Green, Marian Hall, Michael La Rocca, Tonin MacCallum, Kevin McNamara, Juan Pablo Molyneux, Richard Ridge, David Lawrence Roth, Smyth Urquhart Marckwold, George Stacey, Alexandra Stoddard, Stephanie Stokes, Thedlow Inc., Bebe Winkler

Biographies 305 Photography Credits

317


A NOTE ABOUT DATES:

A NOTE ABOUT IMAGES:

Research for this book was conducted in libraries, archives, and designers’ and photographers’ files, as well as interviews with living designers and industry observers. Where discrepancies occurred between sources, I have used dates and biographical details from the oldest original sources.

Many projects by the designers profiled in these pages were never photographed or were photographed only for exclusive publication. Over the years, film has been lost, damaged, restricted by copyright, or withdrawn by client request. What remains is the best work of some designers and a limited selection from others. In choosing projects, historical merit was given precedence over image quality. The number of pages devoted to each designer are not intended to suggest their relative importance, but reflect the availability of relevant photographs.

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PREFACE

T H E S E V O L U M E S T R A C E the course of residential design in New York City as seen in the work of its most prominent practitioners during five decades when that city’s designers set the styles for the rest of the country, and beyond. They also recount the history of the institutions, organizations, and support systems within which the designers worked. The story of these innovators, tracing the evolution of the profession itself, owes much of its uniqueness to the city in which it took place in the years between 1935 and 1985. Although the majority of New York designers initially drew inspiration from European precedents, they did not espouse any single style. And in spite of their different personalities and different ways of doing business, they were inextricably connected. Despite this, they were inextricably connected. Most lived in the area of Manhattan from Turtle Bay through the East Sixties, in elegantly outfitted town houses and apartments. They went to the same parties, ate at the same restaurants, and shopped the same resources—especially in those first decades, when the interior design profession was a small and close-knit group. But what they shared most, apart from geography, was an assurance and sophistication born of the invigorating climate of the metropolis that,

during these decades, was the creative center of the nation and the Western world. While the broadening worldview of both the city and the profession gradually diffused this unanimity, New York interiors of this era are its unique reflection. Whether apartment, town house, weekend retreat, or suburban estate, whether traditional or contemporary in style, the cosmopolitanism and electricity of New York inform them. The rooms here, and the designers who created them, could not belong to any other place or time. The names of most designers featured in these pages will be familiar, as will others in the biographical listing. Many are still in practice, but there are dozens more, equally talented, who pursued their careers out of the limelight. Some chose to evade celebrity; some were too shy to seek it; others were constrained by issues of privacy. My apologies to those whose recognition must be limited to the appreciation of their clients, though some would say that is all the recognition they need.

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INTRODUCTION

A P R O F E S S I O N O N T H E C U S P of being licensed, a practice that equivocates between defining itself as art or artifice, a vocation for the serious and an avocation for the dilettante . . . interior design is an amalgam of all this, and more. Its origins are as vague and heterogeneous as its activities. While the art and craft of decorating can be traced back to the first human who painted on the walls of a cave, the seeds of the profession we know today took root little more than a century ago in that most cosmopolitan of cities, New York. It was there that Elsie de Wolfe fashioned herself a decorator, and a handful of enterprising women followed her to become the first members of a diverse and intriguing group that coalesced into what might be referred to as the New York School of interior decorating. The designation “New York School” describes the community of designers practicing in the city during the decades covered in these volumes. A “school” is a theoretical construct, suggesting a cohesive group of likeminded colleagues. The reality is more complex. Like the artists with whom they share their nomenclature, the designers were a diverse community of individualists pursuing parallel and often contradictory paths, but they were like-minded in their enthusiastic commitment to the new profession. In the aftermath of World War I, the United States emerged as an international power, with New York City its financial hub. At the same time, the city

had supplanted Paris as the center of the artistic world. With the rise of Abstract Expressionism, New York became headquarters for the avant-garde, encouraging the arts of dance, musical theater, literature, and poetry. With a climate welcoming diversity and sympathetic to nonconformists and eccentrics, it was the ideal environment in which to nurture a new creative practice. New York, therefore, formed the nucleus of the nascent design universe. By the mid-1930s, the city had every resource an interior decorator could desire. There were similarly minded practitioners in related arts, with a supportive network of antique and art dealers. There were elegant spaces in which to work, particularly the new luxury apartment buildings transforming Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue, and later Central Park West— the result of an unprecedented post-World War I (and pre-Depression) building boom. There were the best (and for some time, the only) design schools, the necessary materials, the skilled craftsmen, and the influential national media. Finally, and perhaps most critical, New York had the largest demographic of prospective clients—a culturally sophisticated, wealthy elite who understood the value of a beautiful home in establishing, or reinforcing, social status. As this narrative begins, decorating was generally viewed as a frivolous pursuit of society women for a narrow circle of friends and acquaintances. 13


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

That picture was accurate, but it was about to change. The “lady decorators” were joined by others, like Eleanor McMillen, Dorothy Draper, and later Mrs. Henry (Sister) Parish II, who built enduring business organizations. The young institution that would become the Parsons School of Design began to turn out professionally trained decorators, among them the aforementioned McMillen, William Pahlmann, Michael Greer, and Melanie Kahane, who would dominate the field and nurture (in practice or by example) the stars of succeeding design generations, like Albert Hadley, Mark Hampton, Mario Buatta, and many others. As decorating evolved into the more sophisticated practice of interior design, professional schooling became the norm rather than the exception, although even in more recent years, the occasional maverick, like Jay Spectre, Jed Johnson, or Ward Bennett, has succeeded on the basis of talent and hard work alone. Between 1935 and 1985, the New York design community thrived, nurtured by inspiring educators and a changing social milieu. The city lured aspiring talent from many different backgrounds and locations who came to study and stayed to practice. Those who were celebrated in New York achieved national recognition, setting styles that would be adopted by designers and fashion-conscious consumers far beyond the city’s boundaries. After World War II, when men entered the field in greater numbers, the shift in demographics helped to change its image from one of frivolous “women’s work” to that of a serious and increasingly lucrative profession. And when Billy Baldwin became the first male “superstar” decorator, many were inspired to follow his lead. By the third quarter of the century, interior designers were an established and highly respected elite, as socially prominent as many of the clients they served. As the city and the profession flourished, apartments, penthouses, and town houses were joined in the 1970s by residential lofts, a new genre of downtown Manhattan living space that would be emulated in gentrifying neighborhoods around the country. Decorator showrooms proliferated, show houses 14

and exhibitions promoted the art and its practitioners, and glossy magazines and books brought national recognition to New York designers. Even more vital to the growth of the profession was the expansion of its market: a new generation of baby boom urban professionals broadened the potential client base from a restricted social circle to anyone with the financial means to hire a designer. Moreover, these clients, generally younger and less bound by tradition, were likelier to be receptive to more modern styles. In the early years of decorating, there was comparatively little variation from one practitioner to another. For a group so undeniably diverse in birthplace, background, and education, the first generation of New York decorators was remarkably consistent in aesthetic approach. Infused by a strong undercurrent of Eurocentrism, the interiors they produced from the 1930s until the 1950s and beyond most often reflected the styles of 18th-century France, Italy, and England. As the profession began to mature, many designers remained tied to European tradition but there were others who sought more contemporary expressions and a flexible few who straddled the line, drawing from both sources. Between midcentury and 1985, then, the range of New York style gradually evolved from single-mindedly traditional to inclusive, eclectic, and bracingly original. Both designers and their clients at first resisted modernism, a radical departure from the familiar that was seen as too severe, too simple, and to the unconverted, less luxurious than traditional styles. Not until after World War II, encouraged by the postwar building boom and a more democratic clientele, did pioneers like Benjamin Baldwin and Ward Bennett and innovators like Joseph Paul D’Urso and the teams of Bray-Schaible and Bromley Jacobsen create cutting-edge modern interiors that were just as elegant as periodinspired rooms. By the 1970s, more glamorous strains of modernism coexisted with minimalism, and the New York School had split into factions—not warring, but divergent—one committed to modern design, the other retaining its traditional bias. As the decades in this narrative drew to a close, New


INTRODUCTION

York designers were producing interiors that might be elegantly traditional, strikingly modern, or a comfortable coalescence of the two. By this time, too, interior design was evolving as a profession. New York designers remained innovative and influential, but they were no longer the only leaders; other creative centers had emerged, particularly on the West Coast, and skilled designers were practicing in all of the country’s major metropolitan areas. Still, the starting point of this burgeoning industry was the nucleus that formed and flourished between 1935 and 1985 as the New York School. The range of styles developed by the New York School did not evolve in chronological sequence. Rather than a family tree, the growth took the form of a loosely linked network of vines, intersecting at some places and separating at others. The designers profiled here have been arranged in groups according to design approach or style direction: the illustrated projects point to their common bonds. Some of the designers had strong personalities or prominent platforms to showcase their talents; some had the good fortune to capture the attention of the media; others assiduously pursued celebrity. But each of them was chosen for a particular reason: as interpreter of prevailing fashion, as a pioneer of new concepts in design, or as an exemplar of a specific style or trademark look that merits documentation.

The first volume focuses on the years 1935 to 1965, when a concern with decoration and ornament drove the design of New York interiors. There were avowed traditionalists who looked to 18th-century France and Italy for design inspiration. There were Anglophiles who saw the English country house as the paradigm of elegant style. There were explorers, showmen, individualists, and versatile talents whose design vocabulary drew from multiple sources, crossing over periods, and reinterpreting traditional styles in modern colors and nontraditional room arrangements. The second volume deals primarily with the years 1965 to 1985, when spatial considerations dominated the planning of interiors. In these years, modernism prevailed, its adherents include individualists, purists, sybarites, synthesizers, and those whose work reflected their architectural training. The design of interiors was becoming more diverse, and more individualistic, than any time in the profession’s history. All the interiors shown in both volumes, style notwithstanding, reflect a merger of two sensibilities: that of the designer and that of the client. It was to meet his or her needs, after all, that the profession was originally created, and for whom it continues to exist. As a 1965 decorating book put it, “Interior decoration is the mid-20th century’s contribution to the arts of living.”

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THE HISTORY

THE SCHOOLS: LAYING THE FOUNDATION By 1935, interior decoration was already an established business in America, although not quite yet a profession, and New York was the heart of the industry, as it was for most of the nation’s creative activity. The general perception of decorators held them as talented people, generally women, working for an elite clientele from a narrow social circle—one to which the decorators usually belonged. Their chief responsibility was to purchase and resell antique furnishings, and to arrange them in their clients’ homes. This role had gradually extended to choosing color schemes, fabrics, and window treatments, and ordering the materials, but restructuring rooms or reconfiguring space were unheard of. One of the most celebrated practitioners of the time, Rose Cumming, referred to her trade as “the frivolous sister of the architecture profession,” describing what was probably the general opinion at the time, and for some years to come.i Full-service interior decoration has precedents in the work of 18thcentury English architect Robert Adam, but modern histories usually date its origins to about 1905, when Elsie de Wolfe, a New York actress, proclaimed herself a decorator. To be entirely accurate, however, the history

16

of professional interior design in New York—or in the United States, for that matter—begins not in the early 20th century with de Wolfe, but in the late 19th with William Merritt Chase and the institution that would become Parsons School of Design.ii The celebrated painter, concerned at the lack of professional training for artists, established the Chase School of Art (chartered as the New York School of Art) in 1896, with locations on East 23rd and East 14th streets in Manhattan.iii The curriculum focused exclusively on painting, drawing, and sculpture until 1904, when Chase hired an instructor named Frank Alvah Parsons, whose studies in art education at Columbia University had included a design component. Parsons began to teach a course in interior decoration—the first of its kind at any school in the country—to a class of five students.iv When Chase retired in 1907, Parsons became coadministrator and then sole director of the school. He established interior decoration as a full department and added the first professional departments for costume design and commercial illustration (now graphic design). To reflect the broadened curriculum, the school’s name changed in 1909 to the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, incorporated by the Board of Regents of the State of New York. To enhance the institution’s credibility and prestige, two celebrated decorators


THE HISTORY

of the time, de Wolfe and her competitor Elsie Cobb Wilson, were named to the advisory board in 1917. By 1928, the school’s bulletin was using the abbreviated name Parsons, but the name change would not be official for another two decades.v The curriculum’s direction reflected Frank Parsons’ design philosophy. The first textbook on the subject was his own 1915 book, Interior Decoration, Its Principles and Practice. In it, he identified key principles of decoration— color, form, balance, scale, texture—and covered the periods of art history, emphasizing French and, less prominently, English styles. Parsons held that good taste was “an actual asset in life” that could be acquired with proper instruction. His personal prestige contributed to the school’s public image— Parsons was in great demand as a lecturer at public venues in America and abroad, and from 1911 until his death in 1930, he conducted a popular annual lecture series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.vi Just a few years after the New York School of Fine and Applied Art began training interior designers, an architect named Sherrill Whiton created a home-study course in the new field. Mail-order education was then a widely used and acceptable way to acquire professional training, especially in artrelated fields, where formal education was in its infancy. He rented an office on East 40th Street and in 1916 published his first “Home Study Course in the Decorative Arts.” When growing numbers of students started to come by, expecting to find an actual school, Whiton decided to found one. The New York School of Interior Decoration (now the New York School of Interior Design), chartered by the Board of Regents, opened in 1924 on the corner of 57th Street and Madison Avenue.vii The first class had 90 students. It was unique in being a one-subject college, teaching interior decoration exclusively, and offering courses open to laymen as well as to those seeking professional training. The New York School of Interior Decoration’s curriculum, like that of Parsons, emphasized a foundation in classic tradition, particularly the styles of 18th-century France. The early

faculty were specialists drawn from a field of practitioners that included architect Edward Durell Stone, Michael Greer, and Inez Croom. Established decorators Ruby Ross Wood and Nancy McClelland were on the advisory board. In 1937 Whiton published the first edition of his book, Elements of Interior Design and Decoration, which would become a standard text for interior design programs across the country. The book would go through four editions before being revised and rewritten by Stanley Abercrombie in 2001. Gilbert Werlé, a graduate of the school, became assistant to Whiton and served as dean from 1932 to 1973.viii Parsons had meanwhile taken on an international aspect. William Odom, a protégé of Frank Alvah Parsons, joined the faculty after his graduation in 1909, and became head of the interior design department a few years later. At Parsons’s behest, he established a Paris facility for the school in 1921 with 22 students, mostly from England and the Continent. Americans were able to study at either location or split their three years’ training between the New York and Paris branches. The exposure to French culture as well as French design critics (including Jean-Michel Frank, who purportedly conceived the rough outline that became the Parsons table) reflected the school’s emphasis on traditional European styles. The 1921 school bulletin said that “France, more than any other country, has been the center of artistic inspiration since the 16th century,” citing the importance of studying and working with period decorative art and noting that the adaptation of its finest examples was “our national problem.” It also stressed the importance of learning the principles of classical art and architecture. “Though the school firmly advocates the creation of original modern styles, it recognizes the importance of basing these on an academic and classical foundation that alone can give permanency to any art expression.”ix An unqualified success, the Paris school moved to elegant quarters in the historic Place des Vosges. Odom enlisted an elite international circle of 17


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

patrons to support Parsons, both for financial backing and to further enhance its prestige, and these valuable contacts facilitated the addition of travelstudy programs in Italy and England. A few years later, America’s introduction to modernism in the form of French Style Moderne owed much to Parsons teacher Virginia Hamill, who was later a stylist for the prestigious Lord & Taylor department store. Hamill masterminded that retailer’s 1927 and 1928 exhibitions featuring the new designs emanating from across the Atlantic. Parsons attracted many young women, both single and married, who either had time on their hands or needed to earn a living and welcomed the opportunity to study a vocation that was acceptable in a time when careers for women were not the norm. The number of male students, at first a fraction, increased dramatically after World War II, by which time the field was being viewed as both a creative challenge and a potentially profitable career. As the parameters of the decorator’s role expanded, the schools pointed out “what is now becoming generally understood, that the interior is primarily concerned with its architecture.” Acknowledging the first stirrings of modernism and “the problem which the new movement has created,” Parsons asserted, “it will therefore continue to base its courses of instruction on the unchanging fundamental principles of life and of its expression. But it will also attempt to interpret the ‘Modern Art Movement’ from the standpoints of function and beauty as they are related to modern practices and to economic possibilities in the professional fields which it represents.”x By 1924 Parsons had graduated more than 200 students in architecture and interior decoration, and the faculty of 66 was supplemented by visiting critics and trade specialists.xi The earliest graduate to become a celebrated designer in New York was Elsie Cobb Wilson, a favorite of William Odom, who was both mentor and overseas agent for her business; he later did the same for Eleanor McMillen. 18

Thus began the flow of influence from one generation to the next that created the dominant, traditionalist branch of the New York School of decorators. When Frank Alvah Parsons died in 1930, Odom succeeded him as president, maintaining the curriculum and the philosophy that had made the school so successful. Pratt Institute, established in 1887 as an art school, had design classes in its curriculum almost from the beginning. The 1888 catalog listed courses in harmony of color, historic ornament, and principles of ornament and applied design, but they were part of a program in drawing. Two years later, the school instituted a two-year applied design course with instruction in decorative principles and practical application that “aims to fit pupils to become professional designers.” The course of study listed decorative designs and color schemes for rooms, but did not specifically mention interior decoration.xii As Parsons and the New York School of Interior Decoration expanded their programs and enrollment, Pratt continued to offer a variety of design courses without a specific program of study in interior design. It was not until 1946 that Pratt hired Konrad Wittman, a German architect and designer—who like so many others, had fled National Socialism in Europe—to set up a full department of interior design. He organized separate programs of daytime and evening classes and hired instructors, most of whom had backgrounds in architecture.xiii When Wittman died in 1951, Eleanor Pepper, an architecture graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, replaced him, perpetuating the school’s emphasis on the architectural aspects of design, which tended to treat interior decoration as a subset of architecture. This was antithetical to the orientation at Parsons, which emphasized drawing and the more decorative aspects of designing interiors. By 1964, Pratt offered a four-year course leading to a bachelor of fine arts in interior design. Harold Leeds, an interior decorator who had studied architecture, was on the faculty, as were various other practicing designers and architects, including John Pile, an architect and furniture designer who


THE HISTORY

had worked for George Nelson. Pratt’s program focused on commercial and institutional as well as residential design; it would move in a direction that produced designers of an entirely different type—those whose design vocabulary was distinctly modernist. A sea change in the burgeoning profession, and its separation into divergent schools of traditional and contemporary, came after World War II. There were several factors at work. First, there was an increase in design school applicants, spurred largely by an influx of men, including many veterans returning from armed service to pursue government-funded college and career studies under the G.I. Bill of Rights. Their numbers shifted the composition of many design school enrollments from a female to a male majority.xiv Second, it had become apparent that, in addition to its creative appeal, decorating could be profitable: postwar prosperity spawned a wider market of consumers interested in home decoration and able to afford professional help. And finally, the wave of modernism that had begun in Europe before the war was making its way to America. Academic standards in the schools gradually began to reflect these developments, though most curricula remained essentially unchanged: loosening the ties of tradition would take time. In 1944 Parsons changed the title of the course from architecture and interior decoration to interior design and the following year initiated a four-year program, in affiliation with New York University, culminating in a bachelor of science degree. This was during the leadership of perhaps the most influential of the Parsons directors as an arbiter of public taste, Van Day Truex, who headed the school from 1942 to 1953. A 1925 graduate of the Paris branch, Truex had lived and traveled extensively throughout Europe, returning to New York only to take over the presidency. He later became design director of Tiffany & Co., and John Loring, one of his successors, referred to him as an “impassioned traditionalist, with an ability to talk to the modern world.”XV His passion for all things European, however, and his

absolute insistence on the rightness of his own standards, kept the Parsons program on a steady course that favored traditional period styles. Most graduates retained strong ties to the school; some, like Albert Hadley, a 1949 graduate, returned to teach there. In November 1955, Interior Design magazine devoted an entire issue to celebrating the school’s approaching 60th anniversary, an acknowledgment of its stature.xvi Throughout the period covered in these volumes, nearly all of the most celebrated and publicly recognized interior design professionals had attended Parsons. A less public but equally important figure during what has been called “the golden era of Manhattan design”xvii was Stanley Barrows, who taught at Parsons for 22 years, from 1946 to 1968. Admired not only for his superb taste but for his emphasis on the importance of learning design history, Barrows is cited as a seminal influence by designers like Mario Buatta, Albert Hadley, Tom Britt, and Ronald Bricke. When Parsons later came under the direction of administrators rather than tastemakers and the quality of its program suffered (though not, for some time, its reputation), Barrows left to head the interior design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). As public interest in decorating grew, schools offered a number of adult education courses for those hoping to enter the profession as well as for amateurs. In the 1960s, consumers could sign up for classes in design history at the New York School of Interior Design as well as at New York University, Hunter College, and the Traphagen School of Fashion.

THE TRADE: BUILDING A PROFESSION The opening of the 1931 International Style exhibition, curated by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, marked the formal debut of the Modern Movement in America. The new aesthetic captivated architects but made relatively little impact on 19


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

interior designers, who remained loyal to the style directions most comfortable for them and their clients. The pages of decorating magazines and newspapers, even those proclaiming allegiance to “modern,” continued to show interiors that were essentially traditional in feeling. Some published projects that were obviously influenced by French Style Moderne, but these were more often the work of industrial designers than decorators. There was, however, progress on another front: by 1935, the first signs of a true profession were emerging in the decorating world. McMillen Inc., was in business as the first full-service decorating firm, Dorothy Draper’s company was under way, Mrs. Henry Parish II had opened an office in New York, and a young man named William Pahlmann would soon be hired to design model rooms at Lord & Taylor. The prevailing design aesthetic leaned heavily toward formal interiors in the style of 18th-century France, but there were exceptions to the rule: while Eleanor McMillen Brown’s new living room featured soft pastels and an Aubusson carpet, the striking dining room that Elsie de Wolfe Inc. created for a Metropolitan Museum Fine Arts Exposition had a bold, radial-patterned floor in aubergine, gray, and white. The New York Times, commenting on two of the exhibit’s decorated interiors, noted “a tendency to treat period rooms in a freer manner,”xviii although this was a long way from being modern. It is within this framework that New York became the center of a growing industry, nurturing a series of extraordinarily talented and innovative designers who would dictate trends to the rest of the country and whose leadership would drive the field for several decades. Despite their allegiance to tradition, not all New York designers worked in the same style, nor were they in any real sense a cohesive group. They did, however, share the cultural sophistication of their urban environment and easy access to materials and craftsmen, both in the city and abroad. In addition to the availability of a wealthy and willing clientele, they benefited from a support system concentrated almost exclusively in New York: a burgeoning 20

network of trade associations, national media, and public exhibitions that gave prominent exposure to the work of the New York designers. These factors contributed to the growth, the considerable success, and the enduring influence of this unique community. Formed in 1914 by “ladies of taste” who met for tea and to sew for the Red Cross in the home of Gertrude Gheen (like de Wolfe, a former actress turned decorator), the Decorators’ Club was the first design association in New York. The founders wanted a club whose primary purpose was to foster professionalism and quality education in their field. Incorporated in 1921, the club had 38 charter members. Open by invitation only, the select group had presidents including Elisabeth Draper, Mildred Irby, Eleanor Pepper, Melanie Kahane, and Sarah Tomerlin Lee. Of the membership, one representative commented, “if it was anyone important, you can assume she would have been a member.” The group organized decorating clinics, presented scholarship awards, and staged public design and art exhibitions at their headquarters at 745 Fifth Avenue. In 1931, the profession being substantial enough to merit a national organization, the American Institute of Interior Decorators (AIID) was established with 342 members at a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then the manufacturing center of the American furniture industry. (Manufacturers understood the importance of supporting a profession whose clients, even during the Depression, had money to buy furniture.) AIID national headquarters, briefly in Chicago, moved in 1933 to New York, reinforcing the city’s centrality to the industry. The New York chapter was incorporated independently and 25 years later still had the largest enrollment.xix As further indication of the city’s dominance, 13 of the first 20 national conferences took place in New York. In addition to providing members a community of like-minded professionals and a mechanism for sharing ideas, AIID organized events to enhance its public visibility, acknowledging the need to seek clients from beyond the small pool of


THE HISTORY

friends and acquaintances that had been sufficient in a field with fewer competitors and more modest aspirations. In the course of refining both mission and nomenclature, the American Institute of Interior Decorators became the American Institute of Decorators (AID) in 1936 and the American Institute of Interior Designers (still AID) in 1961. Disagreements over membership issues led to a split in the organization and the establishment of a parallel group, the National Society of Interior Designers (NSID), in 1957. The two reunited in 1975, and from that time on, much of the organization’s attention has focused on improving professional standards and securing licensing.xx As the number of decorators grew, the network of New York–based resources that served them also expanded. Fabric firms, concentrated in the area around Madison Avenue and 53rd Street, included Scalamandré, Brunschwig, Elsie McNeill (importer of Fortuny fabrics), F. Schumacher, and Arthur H. Lee (later Lee Jofa). Among the antique shops clustered around East 57th Street were those of Frederick Victoria, Joseph Lombardo, and Rosalind Rosier, as well as those operated by decorators who were also shopkeepers, like James Amster, Yale Burge, and David Barrett. This network of businesses organized ways to promote their interests and products. The most significant of these was the Resources Council, incorporated in 1958, to represent companies servicing the design industry. Its board of directors included New York designers William Pahlmann, John Wisner, Eleanor Le Maire, and Walter Dorwin Teague (an industrial designer responsible for a number of high-profile public interiors, including several at the New York World’s Fair of 1939). The Council was nominally a national group, but as New York was the largest market for the products of the member firms, most of whose headquarters were located there as well, many of its major activities took place in the city. Among them was a series of annual exhibitions of new products, usually involving elaborate displays by prominent designers. Continuing from 1959 to 1965, the exhibitions were

attractive public showcases for both designers and products, and were organized in cooperation with the New York chapter of the American Institute of Interior Designers. With the inauguration of the Decoration & Design Building at 979 Third Avenue in April 1964,xxi designers had a one-stop shopping center, incorporating showrooms for many to-the-trade sources in one 18-story, 320,000square-foot building. Opening with 66 tenants, it represented the first consolidation of the industry and was a model for similar facilities that would later be developed in major cities across the country, spurring both the expansion and the fragmentation of the design community. Just two years later, the building announced an addition. Smaller showroom buildings prospered as well, including the Decorators Art Center at 305 East 63rd Street and the Decorative Center at 315 East 62nd Street. These to-thetrade-only locations were convenient for designers and helped create an air of exclusivity that reinforced the profession’s newly minted glamour. With prestige, however, came a less felicitous effect: by reinforcing its elitist origins, it threatened to intimidate the broader base of consumers who were vital to its growth.

THE MEDIA: CREATING AN IMAGE The increasing sophistication of the magazines that covered the field reflected the changing status of design as an accepted profession. The most influential design-trade publication of the postwar era was Interiors, which began in 1888 as Upholsterer and changed its name to Upholsterer and Interior Decorator, then to Interior Decorator, and then in 1940 to its final name.xxii The magazine, particularly under editor Olga Gueft beginning in the early 1950s, became an important platform for promoting professional design, with a large proportion of its coverage featuring the work of New York designers. Interiors became an enthusiastic supporter of modern design before 21


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

most of the design community was prepared to embrace it. As early as August 1948, its portfolio of the year’s best work did not show a single traditional interior. The other leading publication was launched in 1932 as Decorator’s Digest, the official publication of the American Institute of Interior Decorators. In 1937, it became Interior Design and Decoration, acquiring its present name, Interior Design, in 1950. Devoted primarily to traditional interiors, its pages in the early years reflected the fact that the leading decorators, not to mention the rest of the country, continued to suffer a national inferiority complex— favoring European design over anything homegrown—and, as noted, declined to embrace the winds of modernism that were, by the middle years of the century, changing the climate of design. Although Herman Miller and Knoll were offering innovative modern furniture by American designers and importing that of Bauhaus masters as well, most designers continued to use traditional furnishings for residential interiors, even as offices and commercial spaces became increasingly modern. When Interior Design and Decoration resumed publication in April 1949 after a seven-year wartime suspension, its focus remained on traditional design; editors explained that “we like modern too but we feel an obligation to show only sane modern. . . . America just seems to live in a more traditional way.”xxiii It was at about this time that a distinct specialty emerged called “contract” or “commercial design.” Although many designers handled all types of projects, specialized firms sprang up to cater to this highly profitable segment of the market. The first of these was the Knoll Planning Group in 1943; other pioneer firms were Saphier, Lerner, & Schindler; Designs for Business; Associated Space Design; and Space Design Group, all based in New York.xxiv By the late 1970s, contract and then hospitality design were flourishing sectors of the industry. Understandably, consumer magazines did not take much note of decorators in the early years of the business: few of their readers were likely to be 22

potential clients. As the profession grew in size and its practitioners in stature, however, decorators’ names began to appear in print. By midcentury, a number of general interest magazines were publishing decorating stories (Family Circle, McCall’s, and Redbook), and Better Homes & Gardens, American Home, and Good Housekeeping were dedicated to the subject. The most influential publications to feature professional designers were House Beautiful and House & Garden.xxv Hearst Publishing’s House Beautiful was founded in 1896, and its most influential editor was Elizabeth Gordon (Norcross), who reigned from 1941 to 1964, during which time she became the country’s most powerful arbiter of taste.xxvi In her condemnation of International-style modernism—she dismissed it as totalitarian and a threat to individualism— she undoubtedly contributed to consumers’ reluctance to move away from the security of traditional styles.xxvii With influence equal to that of the editors-in-chief, decorating editors worked directly with designers; they determined story themes and styled interiors for photography. Frances Heard, who began at House Beautiful in 1929 and retired in 1970, had perhaps the longest tenure, but others like Arthur Leaman (House & Garden, 1954–1966) and Lester Grundy (House Beautiful 1940s–1970s) were in a position to make designers into nationally recognized names.xxviii They chose the designers whose projects were photographed . . . and who created studio room settings that suggested decorating ideas and color schemes to consumers all across America. Since all the major shelter magazines, with the exception of Better Homes & Gardens (in any case a more middle-market publication), were headquartered in New York, the designers they featured were heavily skewed to practitioners in that city. Of the best of the magazines (and their elegant European counterparts), Albert Hadley commented, “That’s where I got my education . . . they weren’t catalogs, they were an art form.” A corollary effect of increased consumer interest in decorating was the publication of what became known as “coffee-table books” filled with


THE HISTORY

illustrations of beautiful rooms for readers to admire and perhaps to be inspired by. The Finest Rooms by America’s Great Decorators (1964), one of the earliest and most selective of these, presented the work of just eight decorators: Billy Baldwin, Eleanor McMillen Brown, Rose Cumming, Marian Hall, Mrs. Henry “Sister” Parish II, George Spacey, Ann Urquhart, and Michael Taylor. Taylor, a San Francisco newcomer, was the only non-New Yorker. (Save him, all the “greats” were traditionalists, although Baldwin was less strict in his approach than the others.) In 1965 came two books that were primarily showcases of New York residences: Decoration U.S.A., a compendium of work mostly from the pages of House & Garden, and The New York Times Book of Interior Design and Decoration, reprinting interiors culled from the newspaper’s Sunday magazine. Both these books indicated a growing variation in styles, as designers began to blur the lines between period and more contemporary design. In an era when New York hosted several major newspapers, editors like Betty Pepis, Harriet Morrison, and Rita Reif reported frequently on design events and their participants. Their columns and comments were reprinted in smaller papers across the country.

THE SHOWCASES: MEETING THE PUBLIC In 1936, Lord & Taylor, the New York department store, hired William Pahlmann, a Parsons graduate, to head its decorating department. Pahlmann introduced a new concept—fully decorated model rooms—to showcase the store’s furniture collections, and more importantly as it turned out, to introduce design ideas to shoppers.xxix The success of Pahlmann’s model rooms spurred many imitators in the next two decades. The Decorators’ Picture Gallery, the antiques dealer Stair & Company, the Bertha Schaefer Gallery, the National Arts Club, and the Midtown Gallery were all venues for regular exhibits of interiors by the most prominent designers of the time, including Pahlmann, Melanie Kahane, Eleanor McMillen Brown, and Elisabeth Draper. The department store model room—displaying the art and artifice of the interior designer (at no charge)—in a retail marketplace reached its peak first with Henriette Granville and then with Barbara D’Arcy at Bloomingdale’s. D’Arcy’s extravagant, attention-getting interiors, beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing for over two decades, were launched with great fanfare (and media coverage), establishing the store as a trendsetter in decorating style—the style originating in New York.xxx

23


MRS. HENRY PARISH II

T H E PA R A D I G M of the designer-by-instinct, Sister Parish—as she was known in life and in business—was one of the most influential of the early designers who turned a debutante’s avocation into a serious career. She had no training but her own taste, and the advantage, like others of her time, of social connections that provided clients. She was different from the others, however, in creating a particular look that became inextricably linked to the interiors she designed, and to her eponymous firm. It has best been described as the “undecorated look,” an inventive, American country home ambience in pastel color schemes, with squashy chairs and sofas, a plethora of pillows and prints, and casual bunches of fresh flowers. Born Dorothy May Kinnicutt in 1910 in Morristown, New Jersey, she was reared in upper-crust circles, in family residences in New York and Maine. Married to Henry Parish II, she took up decorating when the Wall Street crash made it necessary to supplement her husband’s income; decorating was then one of the very few options available to a young married woman of her class, for whom most careers were considered unsuitable. She began working from her home in Far Hills, New Jersey, moved to New York to work when her husband was in the army, and opened her own office in 1933. Parish drew her clients from her own acquaintances, and her personal taste, rather than the prevailing fashion, drove her style. 44

Having spent summers since childhood in the family home in Maine, she became interested in local crafts, and hired women to do needlepoint and rugs for the interiors she designed. Parish rooms were a bit old-fashioned, with uncoordinated arrangements of furniture and the comfortable ambiance of old money, combining Victorian clutter and homey charm. Influenced by the English country house genre popularized by the London decorating firm of Colefax & Fowler—she briefly worked with the company in the late 1940s—Parish transformed the style and made it her own. First published in 1967 and endlessly photographed, her home in Maine became the archetypical example of a particular look, credited to Parish, which prefigured the American country style that became overwhelmingly popular in later decades. The most familiar trademarks of the Sister Parish interior are painted or stained floors, a mix of furniture covered with chintz fabrics in several patterns, stacked-up needlepoint pillows, crocheted throws, and hooked or rag rugs. She accessorized with wicker, quilts, baskets, and painted lampshades, and her color schemes recalled country gardens. Understated in their luxury but very accessible and unpretentious, the rooms she designed appeared to have evolved over time, but were in fact always planned with considerable care.


Sister Parish was invited by Jacqueline Kennedy to help decorate the White House family quarters, bringing a personalized touch to the formal interiors. She was honored by her profession as a charter member of the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 1985, and described as “the most famous of all living women interior designers.” Albert Hadley came to work for her in 1963, and the following year, the firm was renamed Parish-Hadley Associates. Parish-Hadley was a training ground for many designers who graduated to important independent careers, including Harold Simmons, Kevin McNamara, Bunny Williams, Mariette Himes Gomez, Brian McCarthy, Mark Hampton, David Easton, and David Kleinberg.

Entrance hall with painted furniture and swagged frieze, designer’s own apartment, Upper East Side, 1970s 45


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Living room, John Hay Whitney house, Long Island, late 1960s 46


MRS. HENRY PARISH II

Bath with flowered fabric and painted chairs, Whitney house, Long Island, late 1960s

Feminine bedroom with hooked rugs and crochet and needlepoint accents, Whitney house, late 1960s

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INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Living room with Aubusson rug and French furniture, designer’s own apartment, Upper East Side, 1970s 48


MRS. HENRY PARISH II

Living room with country-house colors, chinoiserie-painted panels, and mixed-period furniture, designer’s own apartment, 1970s 49


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Living room with contemporary art, overstuffed upholstery, and striped flatweave carpet, Upper East Side apartment, 1970s 92


BILLY BALDWIN

Master bedroom with graphic carpet, flowered chintz, and ceiling-mounted bed canopy, Upper East Side apartment, 1970s 93


M C MILLEN INC.

F O U N D E D I N 1924 by Eleanor McMillen Brown, McMillen Inc. is the oldest design firm still in existence that was both established by and continually headed by a woman. Through the six decades covered in these volumes, the firm maintained a reputation, shared by that of Parish–Hadley, as designers-of-choice for some of the wealthiest and socially elite clients in the country. Catering to successive generations of old-money clients as well as others seeking the cachet of working with the venerable firm, McMillen expanded in both personnel (no longer primarily female) and design approaches, but McMillen’s continuing prestige remained rooted in its wellbred, impeccably rendered Eurocentric interiors. Brown remained active throughout this period, only gradually ceding control to younger associates. Among those was Betty Sherrill, a New Orleans–born art major at Sophie Newcomb College who moved to New York as a young married woman. She began taking courses at Parsons when she found herself looking for an “acceptable” avocation to occupy her spare time. Taking time off to start a family, she never finished the program, but she convinced Eleanor Brown, who had been one of her instructors at Parsons, to hire her. Sherrill joined McMillen in 1951, and became one of the early and relatively few serious professionals to successfully combine work, marriage, and family. Through her social contacts, she developed a 94

network of well-connected clients for whom she designed executive offices as well as multiple residences in New York and around the country, helping to expand McMillen into the burgeoning field of contract design— banks, law offices, and similarly upscale projects that reflected the same kind of affluent sophistication as McMillen-designed apartments and houses. Sherrill’s style, albeit grand, was more inviting than Brown’s, with livelier colors and an eye for visual appeal taking precedent over pure pedigree in furnishings. The range of McMillen’s work broadened over the years to include contemporary interiors as well as the elegant traditional designs that were its trademark—a style described in 1974 by a New York Times reporter as “well-bred, not trendy.” They were awarded high-profile commissions such as Blair House, the Presidential guest house, and were invited to participate in numerous show houses that provided platforms from which to launch the talents of a younger generation of designers. Ensuring its enviable success, McMillen clients have passed on the “family firm” to as many as four generations of blue-blood clients. Peruvian-born Luis Rey joined McMillen in 1972 to head the drafting department, the only area of the company where women were not in the majority. Rey was trained as an engineer and his design approach is more architectural than decorative. As a result, his interiors show a precise


attention to well planned space and finely executed details. “The most expensive part of design is the mistake,” he once noted in an interview. Betty Sherrill became president of McMillen in 1975. After Mrs. Brown’s retirement in 1986, Sherrill purchased the firm with Luis Rey and Marie Louise Gertler, and it continued to thrive under their direction. Professional training remains a priority—most of the company’s designers followed the founder’s tradition of graduating from Parsons. McMillen alumni who have gone on to important careers of their own include Garrick Stephenson, Kevin McNamara, and Alexandra Stoddard. As former employee Mark Hampton once commented in explaining McMillen’s success, “Whatever style they work in, everything is right. They have a great sense of how people want to live.”

Living room with brilliant geometric patterns, Upper East Side, ca. 1980

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INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Traditional furniture with leopard-print upholstery and carpeting, Sherrill dining room, Upper East Side, 1968 96


THE COMPOSERS

TRANSLATING EUROPEAN TRADITION with a lighter hand, these designers were freethinking adventurers rather than adherents of a preferred period style. Their interiors explored the permutations of old and new, formal and casual, plain and fancy. The results, endlessly varied, combine elements in settings that are both comfortably familiar and refreshingly different. David Eugene Bell used the department store as stage, designing rooms in many moods with equal versatility and a sense of drama. Carleton Varney deftly preserved the Dorothy Draper legend while creating an up-to-date, sophisticated design identity of his own. Parsons classmates Ed Zajac and Richard Callahan turned the pattern-on-pattern look into an art form that brought them attention and acclaim. Harrison Cultra restored his own house with single-minded dedication and tasteful results, leading him into a career designing beautiful interiors for others. And Jed Johnson catapulted to celebrity through his links to the colorful art world, but proved deserving on his own merits.

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CARLETON VARNEY

T A K I N G O V E R A F I R M established by one of the most famous designers of the century, Carleton Varney carried on the image of the legendary Dorothy Draper and created a colorful one of his own. Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, he graduated from Oberlin College in 1958, with a major in Spanish, having spent his junior year at the University of Madrid. He began a career as a language teacher, but his interest in fine arts quickly led him in another direction, and when he met Dorothy Draper, he accepted a job in her office. He pursued his art studies to earn a master’s degree in fine arts from New York University in 1969. When he was just in his 20s, he and Leon Hegwood, then president of the firm, purchased Dorothy Draper & Company from the founder. They retained her name and expanded the company’s reach to work on the type of hospitality projects for which the Draper firm had become internationally known, in addition to residential interiors. Varney continued working

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on the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, one of Dorothy Draper’s most celebrated projects, retaining its original character as he updated it for the taste and needs of the current generation. Varney has managed the delicate task of preserving the Draper legacy while moving beyond it. His work, particularly in hotel and resort projects, often pays homage to the legendary designer, but is otherwise attuned to his more worldly taste. His interior designs are not as theatrical as Draper’s, and better suited to a more sophisticated generation of travelers. They are generally traditional in furnishings and rich in color, featuring a variety of patterns and fabrics. Varney’s use of antiques and period accessories reflects his art education and his eclectic taste. In addition to his peripatetic design work, Varney found time to write a design column and a number of books, among them, The ABCs of Decorating (1983), and others about Dorothy Draper.


Entrance hall with strong colors and painted checkerboard-pattern floor, designer’s own apartment, Trump Tower, ca. 1980

Dining room, repeating overscale floor of entry, ca. 1980

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ZAJAC & CALLAHAN (EDWARD ZAJAC AND RICHARD CALLAHAN)

A M O N G T H E M O S T O R I G I N A L D E S I G N E R S of their generation, Edward Zajac and Richard Callahan built on a strong base of history to create a trademark style. The interiors that brought them into the public eye in the 1970s and ’80s were a radical departure from the movement toward modernism that was drawing other young designers. Instead, they looked back to the previous century in a fondness for multiple patterns, adventurous colors, and a complex interplay of accessories and accent furniture. Born in Camden, New Jersey, Ed Zajac was a pre-dental student at Temple University when induction into the army interrupted his schooling and changed his life. As the Korean War was drawing to a close, he was assigned to research schools to be recommended to soldiers soon to be discharged, who would be eligible under the GI Bill of Rights for paid postmilitary service education. In the course of his research, Zajac came across a brochure from Parsons School of Design. “I hadn’t thought about being a designer,” he comments, “but I liked the idea of traveling in Europe,” so he applied and was accepted. His classmates at Parsons included Richard Callahan, Tom Britt, and Angelo Donghia, all of whom traveled together in Europe during the six-month term abroad. At Parsons, Zajac thrived on the rigid program, the emphasis on drawing (“Drawing columns helped me know how to detail a lampshade”), and 166

the training under teachers like Stanley Barrows. After graduating in 1958, he worked at McMillen, where Natalie Davenport became a mentor. “McMillen was like being in the army,” he said, “with Mrs. Brown the general.” After two years, he was offered a job with Billy Baldwin, and became his primary assistant. Impressed by his glamorous lifestyle, Zajac was equally struck by Baldwin’s superlative design skills, and remained there for almost eight years, reluctantly leaving to pursue an independent path. Richard Callahan, born on Long Island, graduated from Parsons and worked for the venerable French-owned decorating firm of Jansen, then Valerian Rybar, and finally John Gerald, before joining Zajac to form a partnership in 1966. They enjoyed almost immediate success, with pattern-on-pattern interiors that seemed to be randomly assembled, but required meticulous planning—each pattern was calculated to cancel out the other, with complementary motifs, scale, and colorations. The most readily recognized Zajac and Callahan rooms are fantasies of variegated designs and lively color combinations, with eye-catching objects like the intricately framed decorative mirrors that Zajac designed and produced. Their interiors were intriguing and animated, but not overwhelming, and they brought the designers considerable attention. Zajac and Callahan designed rooms more traditional


than contemporary, but they were rarely interested in meticulously recreating the past. They preferred to reinterpret the past, always with a touch of humor. Most of their interiors were lavishly accessorized with an eclectic assortment of objects that somehow blended congenially. Creating a genre altogether their own, however, was a mixed blessing, as the designers would have preferred to be known for their versatility. “Everyone hired us to do only that,” Zajac commented. Nevertheless, the trademark style brought them clients and considerable attention from the media, including eight House & Garden covers in a two-year period. Of the two, Zajac was the more unrestrained and multi-tasking; he designed and manufactured accent mirrors as well as a collection of wallpapers. Zajac also designed an ingenious collection of fabric modules (borders, panels, arm pieces, etc.) that assembled into precisely patterned upholstery. “It’s a curse, to be famous for doing only one thing,” said Ed Zajac about the partners’ celebrity as masters of the pattern-on-pattern look, noting his wish to try his hand at modern interiors. Nevertheless, their masterful juggling act created rooms that were a happy confluence of styles, but very much their own. The partnership ended in 1985, and Zajac formed an independent practice. Skirted seating and Asian accents, the designers’ own apartment, Greenwich Village, 1980s

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INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Entrance hall, the designers’ own apartment, Greenwich Village, 1980s 172


ZAJAC & CALLAHAN

Mirrored parlor with Napoléon III chairs and boldly patterned screen, designers’ own apartment, 1980s

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HARRISON CULTRA

M O S T I N F L U E N T I A L I N T E R I O R D E S I G N E R S enjoy relatively long working lives, but Harrison Cultra was not one of them. His premature death at the age of only 42 cut short a career that might otherwise have attained international renown. However, his accomplishments merit note as skilled, tradition-minded interpretations of classic style. Cultra was born in Urbana, Illinois, and attended the University of Arizona, after which he studied fine art at the Sorbonne in Paris. Settling in New York in 1965, he went to work for the venerable Rose Cumming, whose flamboyant persona and adventurous style influenced many other young designers. In 1971, he formed a partnership with English expatriate Georgina Fairholme, who had worked with Colefax & Fowler and shared his fondness for the traditional country-house style pioneered by that firm. Their partnership ended in 1974. Cultra’s own home, Teviotdale, was one of his projects that drew national attention. It was a pre-Revolutionary structure built by the father-in-law of Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, and later owned by the Fultons. Cultra purchased the almost irretrievable structure and spent three years restoring it, salvaging what could be rescued and painstakingly restoring the rest. He then made the house available for public viewing. His work was also seen and admired in the first edition of the Kips Bay 176

Decorator Show House in 1973, along with that of David Barrett, Ellen Lehman McCluskey, and others. A volatile personality with red hair to match, he designed rooms that followed fashion, yet were marked by a strong sense of scale and a fondness for lively color. In the late 1970s, The New York Times described him as a “rising young star.” Cultra had a fine eye for color and a strong sense of scale. The rooms he designed were clearly traditional, without belonging to any one period. They were sumptuous without being ostentatious, and most importantly, they looked comfortable to live in. In 1981, Cultra hired Stephanie Stokes, a Colorado native who had studied Asian art at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Although she always had an interest in architecture and design, Stokes had worked on Wall Street, been a journalist and photographer in the Far East, and partnered in building projects in Indonesia, before journalistic assignments for Architectural Digest spurred her to seek a career in design. She worked for Mark Hampton for a year before joining Cultra, whom she met on an interview assignment. When Cultra died, they had barely begun work on a major project, an historic Connecticut home. With only preliminary sketches and a rough idea of Cultra’s concept, Stokes took over and finished the project, before establishing an independent practice of her own.


INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Dining room with crisp sheer curtains and spare neoclassical furniture, Long Island house, 1981 180


JED JOHNSON

O P U L E N T R E S T R A I N T , the title of a book about the life and work of Jed Johnson, is an apt description for the design approach taken by a man who lived in a celebrity-infused atmosphere and became a star himself. He was entirely self taught in matters of design, but gifted with an extraordinary eye for the finest objects and an instinctive ability to combine them in ways that were unexpected, intriguing, and original. Born in Alexandria, Minnesota, Johnson was one of six children, including a twin brother named Jay. He grew up in California with no particular inclination toward design. It was a fortuitous trip to New York in 1968 that determined the course of his life. He and his brother Jay hitchhiked across the country, and after a chance meeting with Andy Warhol, he was hired to work at the fabled Factory. As charming and attractive as he was innately talented, Johnson became the companion of the artist, a famously insatiable collector of a cornucopia of styles from kitsch to fine antiques. Much of Johnson’s design education came in his travels with Warhol, and in arranging the rooms of the East Side town house that Warhol purchased in 1974. Johnson designed the interiors to showcase superb examples of American antique furniture, exhibiting different periods in different rooms. This attention-getting project helped establish him as a designer, but his independent career was launched when a 194

famous fashionable friend visited, and asked Johnson to decorate his apartment. He opened Jed Johnson Associates in 1978, and began to acquire a stable of high-profile clients, initially through contacts made at the Factory but later through his own growing reputation. Johnson appreciated quality antiques of every period, and worked in a range of styles from American Colonial to Art Deco. He was attentive to detail, and fortunate in working with affluent clients, many of them serious collectors; he helped them add to their treasures in well-planned, wide-ranging shopping expeditions in New York, London, and Paris. Graced with an encyclopedic memory, he could recall objects he had seen on previous trips even years before. He loved textiles in unusual weaves and patterns, and sought them out. Arthur Dunham, one of his design associates, recalls the meticulous research that Johnson put into every detail of every interior. Without bearing a particular trademark, Johnson’s interiors were clearly the work of a connoisseur of fine objects with a keen sense of proportion that guided his arrangement of them to the greatest advantage. As his business expanded, Johnson hired architect Alan Wanzenberg, who was then working at the office of I. M. Pei as a part-time employee. In 1981, the two men combined their skills and established a partnership. The practice was very successful, and soon expanded to a staff of more than 40. Wanzenberg


and Johnson furnished their own West Side apartment with a superb collection of Arts and Crafts furniture chosen to complement the Gothic architecture of the space; this project too received considerable press attention. By the time he came into the field, it had advanced to the point where formal design education was an expected part of any aspiring designer’s background. An outstanding exception to the rule, Johnson held his own on the strength of native talent and welcome opportunity.

Entrance hall with eclectic furniture arrangement, Andy Warhol town house, Upper East Side, ca. 1980 195


JED JOHNSON

Sitting room with Art Deco furniture and modern art, Warhol town house, ca. 1980 197


JED JOHNSON

Mix of neoclassical and folk objects, Warhol town house, 1980s

Bedroom with canopied Empire bed and handwoven rugs, Warhol town house, 1980s

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was placed to its greatest advantage; like a museum of treasures, an interior by Denning & Fourcade bespoke connoisseurship, superb taste, and the means to afford the very best. Their international clientele comprised old money and the newly rich alike, and Denning & Fourcade created designs for society events as well as private homes. These interiors, and their own equally splendid living quarters, were featured in both European and American publications.

Belle Epoque-style living room, designers’ own apartment, Paris, ca. 1980

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INVENTORS OF TRADITION

Dining room with 18th-century Swedish chandelier, fretwork screen, and 18th-century Chinese wallpaper, Upper East Side apartment, 1983

218


THOMAS BRITT

Narrow dining room with mirrors and architectural detailing, designer’s own apartment, 1980s 241


PO RTFOLIO

RONALD BRICKE

RICHARD RIDGE

GEORGE CLARKSON

D AV I D L AW R E N C E R O T H

ELISSA CULLMAN

S M Y T H U R Q U H A RT M A R C K WA L D

SUSAN ZISES GREEN

G E O R G E S TA C E Y

M A R I A N H A L L (H A L L

AND

T AT E )

ALEXANDRA STODDARD

MICHAEL LA ROCCA

STEPHANIE STOKES

TONIN MACCALLUM

THEDLOW INC.

KEVIN MCNAMARA

BEBE WINKLER

J U A N P A B L O M O LY N E U X

287


RON BRICKE

Living room, Upper East Side apartment, 1980

Living room, designer’s own apartment, Paris, 1979 288

Bedroom with curtained walls, designer’s own apartment, 1972


BEBE WINKLER

Living room with classical ambience with mix of styles, Park Avenue duplex apartment, ca. 1980 304


BIOGRAPHIES

AMSTER, JAMES (1908–1986) Lynn, Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, painting/sculpture studies, 1925–1926 CAREER HISTORY: Bergdorf Goodman; Charles of London, New York; Syrie Maugham, London; established Amster & Lamb (later known as James Amster Associates), 1938; restored Amster Yard, 1946 ORGANIZATIONS: American Institute of Decorators, president, New York chapter, 1951 RECOGNITION: American Institute of Decorators, fellow BORN:

BALDWIN, BILLY (1903–1983)

Source award for lighting design, 1977; American Society of Interior Designers, fellow

RECOGNITION:

BARRETT, DAVID Queens, New York École des Beaux-Arts, Paris Served in U.S. Army, Division of Special Services, during World War II CAREER HISTORY: opened shop in Cedarhurst, Long Island, 1950, in New York City, 1958; display design for DePinna, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Franklin Simon, and Macy’s, 1950s; relocated business to New York City and expanded to fullscale decorating, 1959 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House; Lord & Taylor, 1972 RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow BORN:

William Williar Baldwin Jr., Baltimore, Maryland Princeton University Served in U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II CAREER HISTORY: C. J. Benson (Baltimore); Ruby Ross Wood Inc., 1935–1950; established Baldwin Inc. (later Baldwin & Martin, with Edward Martin Jr.), 1950–1970; Baldwin, Martin & Smith, with Arthur E. Smith, 1971–1973 AUTHOR: Billy Baldwin Decorates (1972); Billy Baldwin Remembers (1974); Billy Baldwin: An Autobiography (1985) PRODUCT DESIGN: wall coverings for Woodson, c. 1950s; furniture for Luten Clarey Stern, 1974

Texas Washington and Lee University; New York School of Fine and Applied Art, 1940 Served in U.S. Army Air Force during World War II CAREER HISTORY: Joseph B. Platt, 1940–1941; Parsons School of Design, 1946–1968; Fashion Institute of Technology, chairman, interior design department, 1969–1985

BARMACHE, LEON (1907–ca. 1985)

BELL, DAVID EUGENE (1921–2006)

France or Monaco ACTIVE 1930s–1980s Pratt Institute, studied in Paris Served in U.S. Army during World War II PRODUCT DESIGN: Edward Fields (rugs); Cooper Lighting

BORN:

BORN:

BORN:

BARROWS, STANLEY (1914–1995) BORN:

Eugene Weir Bell, Pennsylvania Pratt Institute; New York School of Interior Design Served in U.S. Navy during World War II CAREER HISTORY: Best & Company; Bamberger’s; Macy’s; Bloomingdale’s, 1960–1978; established Design Multiples, 1978 305


BIOGRAPHIES

Kips Bay Decorator Show House American Society of Interior Designers, New York chapter, president, 1981; Center for Tapestry Arts, charter member; American Craft Council, member

Kips Bay Decorator Show House Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1986; American Society of Interior Designers, Designer of Distinction, 1989

EXHIBITED:

EXHIBITED:

ORGANIZATIONS:

RECOGNITION:

BERNSTEIN, MAURICE

BRICKE, RONALD

Cairo, Egypt; emigrated to United States, 1952 Parsons School of Design, 1957 CAREER HISTORY: Jansen (Paris), 1957–1958; Raymond Loewy, 1958–1959; Howard Perry Rothberg, 1959–1961; established own practice, 1961

BORN:

BORN:

New York City Parsons School of Design, 1961 (winner, Parsons design competition) CAREER HISTORY: Burge-Donghia; established Ronald Bricke Associates, 1973 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, honorary member

BRADFIELD, GEOFFREY (ca. 1948–) South Africa, emigrated to U.S. in 1977 Selborne College (East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa) Served in South African Army CAREER HISTORY: established own firm in Johannesburg, South Africa; Melanie Kahane; McMillen Inc.; partner in Jay Spectre Inc., 1978; established Geoffrey Bradfield Inc., 1992 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House ORGANIZATIONS: American Society of Interior Designers BORN:

BRITT, THOMAS (1935–) Kansas City, Missouri Parsons School of Design, 1958; New York University, BS 1959 CAREER HISTORY: Rose Cumming; John Gerald; established Thomas Britt Inc., 1964 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Interior Design, Hall of Fame, 1990; Architectural Digest, AD 100 BORN:

BROWN, ELEANOR MCMILLEN (1890–1991) BRAHMS, DORA (1897/98–1970) Dora Sonet, New York City Established Dora Brahms Inc., ca. 1930; assisted in decoration of the Oval Office of the White House and served on committee for White House decoration, 1950s–1960s RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, memorial award in her name for encouraging historic preservation BORN:

CAREER HISTORY:

Eleanor Stockstrom, St. Louis, Missouri New York School of Fine and Applied Art, 1920 CAREER HISTORY: Elsie Cobb Wilson, 1921–1924; McMillen Inc., 1924; sold firm to Betty Sherrill, Luis Rey, and Mary Louise Gertler, 1986 EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, 1952 BORN:

BROWN, EVERETT (d. 1996) BRAHMS, RONNIE (1920–2007) ACTIVE

1950s–1980s American Society of Interior Designers

ORGANIZATIONS :

BRAMANTE, LEWIS (deceased)

CAREER HISTORY:

established own office, 1934; branches in New York and

San Francisco Color Association of the United States, founding member; American Society of Interior Designers, president RECOGNITION: American Society of Interior Designers, fellow, designer of distinction ORGANIZATIONS:

Active 1960s–1980s

BUATTA, MARIO (1935–) BRASWELL, JOSEPH (1929–2006) Sheffield, Alabama Birmingham-Southern College; Parsons School of Design, advertising design, 1950 CAREER HISTORY: partner, Braswell/Cook Associates, with Inman Cook, 1956–1966; Braswell & Associates, 1965–1972; Braswell/Willoughby, with Ward Willoughby, 1972–1989; Braswell & Associates, 1989 BORN:

306

Staten Island, New York Wagner College; Pratt Institute; Cooper Union; Parsons School of Design, 1961 CAREER HISTORY: B. Altman & Co.; Elisabeth Draper; William Pahlmann; Irvine & Fleming; Mario Buatta Inc., 1963; redecorated Blair House, with Mark Hampton, 1980s EXHIBITED: Kips Bay Decorator Show House RECOGNITION: Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1985, charter inductee BORN:



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



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


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


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

12

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

53


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

F

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

54


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

55


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

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

80


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

81


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

93


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

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

146

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

147


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

160


JUAN MONTOYA

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

161


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

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

168


BARBARA D’ARCY

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

169


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

180


ANGELO DONGHIA

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

181


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

210


RICHARD MEIER

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

211


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

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

226


GWATHMEY SIEGEL

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

227


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

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

230

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


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

239


MASTERS OF MODERNISM

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

240


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

241


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

257


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

258


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


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. 288

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.


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


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