RIP: 2012’s Notable Passings
Interior Design remembers 19 of the late designers, architects, and industry talents who died last year, presented in alphabetical order:
Ed Annink (1956-2012)
Ontwerpwerk creative director Ed Annink initiated and curated the Design Den Haag foundation, dedicated to connecting designers and government projects. He also created products for Droog, Driade, and many other esteemed companies.
Gae Aulenti (1927-2012)
The Italian trail-blazer created everything from museums, including Paris’s Musée d’Orsay and Venice’s Palazzo Grassi; showrooms for Fiat and Olivetti; products for Knoll, Kartell, and Artemide; private residences around the world; and galleries for the Pompidou Centre, Barcelona’s Palacio Nacional, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
Anthony P. Browne (1942-2012)
The Interior Design Best of Year Award-winning designer brought his traditional, chintz-favoring style to interiors for celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Albert Hadley (1920-2012)
The legendary partner of Sister Parish designed thoughtful, surprising, and timeless residences for everyone from Brooke Astor to Al and Tipper Gore, eventually arriving in Interior Design’s Hall of Fame in 2010.
Susan R. Joslin-Muller (1964-2012)
The Fort Myers, Florida-based interior designer was the principal of Susan Muller Interior Design, and received three national Aurora Awards, presented by the Southeast Building Conference.
Gerhard Kallmann (1915-2012)
The Berlin-born architect designed modernist buildings around the world, but is best known for Boston City Hall, the Brutalist masterpiece that received a 1969 AIA Honor Award for Architecture.
William Louis Larson (1924-2012)
The Omaha-based co-founder of the DLR Group designed buildings across the Midwest, and was inducted into the AIA’s College of Fellows in 1972.
William Moggridge (1943-2012)
The director of Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and co-founder of product design firm IDEO also happened to design the very first laptop computer.
Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012)
The master of Modernism brought a new identity to Brazil through Brasília, his sweeping and innovative complex of government buildings completed in 1960.
Alberto Pinto (1945-2012)
The veteran Parisian designer brought a fearless expertise in everything from Orientalism to Minimalism to projects for Middle Eastern royalty, international corporate headquarters, and product lines for Ercuis et Raynaud, Pierre Frey, D. Porthault, and his own eponymous collections.
Roger Prigent (1923-2012)
The antiquarian and fashion photographer was largely responsible for the revival of French Empire through his store Malmaison, which often exhibited rare finds at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, influencing a generation of interior designers and collectors.
Peter Shelton (1945-2012)
Shelton, Mindel & Associates, the firm co-founded in 1978 by this Interior Design Hall of Famer and Best of Year Award recipient, went on to also win sixteen AIA awards on the strength of projects like its Anglophile-meets-Minimalist Madison Avenue headquarters for Polo/Ralph Lauren.
Dale D. Smith (1942-2012)
The architect worked for Philip Johnson, among others, before returning to his native Indiana to eventually found Dale D. Smith Associates and receive awards and honors from the NEA, U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Architects Society of Ohio.
Larry Stevenson (1930-2012)
This former lifeguard essentially created the modern skateboard industry with his design of the kicktail, a lever that balances the board to enable high-flying tricks like the Ollie.
Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012)
The Surrealist pioneer created sets and costumes for George Balanchine, wrote poetry, made fascinating sculpture and artwork, and married Max Ernst in a double ceremony with Man Ray and Juliet Browner.
Miles Treaster (1938-2012)
The Sacramento native grew his Miles Treaster & Associates design firm and distributor into the largest Central Valley source of Herman Miller furniture.
Anne Tyng (1920-2012)
One of the first women admitted to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Tyng studied with Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius before extensively collaborating with her partner Louis Kahn as his, in the words of Buckminster Fuller, “geometrical strategist.”
Barbara D’Arcy White (1928-2012)
The Interior Design Hall of Famer designed hundreds of model rooms for Bloomingdale’s from 1958 to 1973, and oversaw the fabled first-floor redesign, virtually unchanged since its completion in 1978.
Lebbeus Woods (1940-2012)
The experimental architect worked with Eero Saarinen in the 1960s, before founding the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture and teaching architecture “on the level of principle” at Cooper Union.
