T R I B U TE
REMEMBERING ROBERT BLAICH, FIDSA
W
e first met Robert I. Blaich (who we will refer to as Bob, as did his many friends and colleagues) in 1975 when we were co-chairs of design at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and designing an exhibition for the Cranbrook Art Museum entitled Knoll/Herman Miller. The exhibit presented the two companies’ parallel, but very different, groundbreaking design processes, philosophies, and forms. Bob, as Herman Miller’s director of corporate design and communications, was responsible for supplying us with Herman Miller furniture and information for the exhibit. This is when we first realized that although Bob was known as one of the top American design directors and managers, above all he was a design educator. He had a passion for teaching the public, corporate leaders, and his design staff the principles of design excellence, and this exhibit was part of that passion. Herman Miller After joining Herman Miller in 1953, Bob became the connection between the company’s consulting designers, the company’s product development process, and the company’s executive leadership as Herman Miller ventured into educational furnishings, airport seating, healthcare equipment, and office landscape systems. Bob shepherded design classics like the Eames Aluminum Group Chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and designs by George Nelson, FIDSA, Alexander Girard, Don Chadwick, and Bruce Burdick into production. He also managed the company’s internal design activity, including projects by Bill Stumpf, Ray Wilkes, and Robert Probst. Bob was involved in the transformation of the modern office landscape with innovative products like Action Office by Probst and the Ergon Chair by Stumpf. Drawing on his architectural education at Syracuse University, he was able to communicate the functional benefits of interior planning with these revolutionary office furnishings to interior designers, architects, and their clients, coordinating the design of Herman Miller showrooms and design marketing, often working with the design writer and thinker Ralph Caplan, H/IDSA. At Herman Miller, Bob developed his belief in design as “a holistic activity that combines product, communications and environment design,” a position he advocated frequently in design conference presentations.
22
IDSA.ORG
Design Michigan Shortly after the Knoll/Herman Miller exhibit, Bob asked us to form a team of Cranbrook graduate design students under our direction to create the Design Michigan program, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. This was part of the NEA’s Federal Design Improvement Program of the 1970s, dedicated to educating government leaders and citizens about the value of design. This included an exhibition of the best of Michigan design and educational materials, which were distributed through the Michigan state government. Bob acted as the initiative’s executive director and our insightful client, steering the conceptual direction and forging essential connections throughout the state. Again, Bob’s approach was that of a design educator reaching out to the public, government, and industry. Philips In 1980 Bob took on a major new challenge as the managing director of corporate industrial design for Philips Electronics in the Netherlands. He inherited a vast international design staff of hundreds that lacked a coherent design philosophy to unify the company’s 14 product divisions, including consumer electronics, small domestic appliances, personal care products, professional equipment, medical equipment, and lighting. At Philips’ Corporate Industrial Design Center, again Bob took the approach of a design teacher and organized a series of “Interdesign” seminars, lectures, and workshops for the company’s designers, which hosted designers and design thinkers like Bill Moggridge, FIDSA, John Rheinfranck, Klaus Krippendorf, Reinhart Butter, and us. Many workshops focused on human-centered design strategies to identify what people needed and wanted in their products and to develop more user-friendly product interfaces. Simultaneously, the design staff were encouraged to explore product semantics, designing expressive new product forms that proved to be resonant influencers in the emerging global consumer culture while also enhancing Philips’ bottom line. Bob especially supported and mentored the corporation’s younger designers, who eventually rose to leadership positions in the company and designed a plethora of award-winning products. A major focus of Bob’s work was the development of close relationships