
Carl Magnusson
Regarded as one of the most acclaimed industrial designers today, Swedish-born Carl Gustav Magnusson has left his indelible mark on a wide range of products, including those for Teknion, Knoll, and MoMA.
Educated in architecture at the Chalmers Institute of Technology (Sweden), Magnusson translated his skills to high design when he began working for Ray and Charles Eames in Venice, California, in 1966. Soon after he opened his namesake studio, Magnusson Design, in Rudolf Schindler’s house in North Hollywood.
For over three decades, beginning in 1972, Magnusson forged a career with Knoll, serving as Director of Design in Europe and North America His designs—such as the RPM chair—remain a best seller to this day. He also commissioned work from more than 50 designers, including Frank Gehry, Maya Lin, an dross Lovegrove. During his Knoll tenure, Magnusson also initiated (1994) the Knoll Design Symposium at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills and co-founded (1995) the Knoll Museum in East Greenville, PA—considered the most comprehensive collection of archival items assembled by any single furniture manufacturer.
Carl Magnusson’s mantra, “Innovation is a unique combination of existing ideas,” best describes his firm, CGM Design, founded in 2005, which has received over 15 design awards for work with leading furniture and automotive manufacturers. Since age 65, Magnusson has received 21 awards, including the 2012 Legend Award from Contract magazine. He is also a sought-after lecturer and judge for prestigious international competitions such as the Yale Furniture Design Competition.
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If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York by Steven Heller
Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Published: October 2022
An entertaining coming-of-age memoir from Steven Heller, award-winning designer, writer, and former senior art director at the New York Times, that takes readers on a visually inspired look back at being at the center of New York’s youth culture in the 1960s and ’70s.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
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