In The News
Collab Design Excellence Award Honorees continue to make headlines
Kering and Phaidon have launched a new book, Woman Made: Great Women Designers, spotlighting contributions to furniture and product design made by Patricia Urquiola (2017), Faye Toogood (2016), Zaha Hadid (2011), Denise Scott Brown (1994) among others. Oki Sato (2016) of the Japanese design firm Nendo designed the Olympic cauldron for the 2021 summer games in Tokyo. In 2022, Madman Film in Australia will launch Mau, the first feature-length documentary about design visionary Bruce Mau (2015). Marc Newson (2013) and Jonathan Ive (1999) have joined forces with Ferrari on its first all-electric car to be launched in 2025. Zaha Hadid’s (2011) eponymous firm and Japanese furniture brand Karimoku have collaborated on a series of wooden chairs and tables featuring Hadid’s distinctive sinuous silhouettes. An exhibition of prototypes as well as jewelry, footwear, lighting and more is on view Oct 13 to Dec 3, 2021 at Karimoku Commons, Tokyo. If you thought Frank Gehry’s (2008) Guggenheim Bilbao was maravillosa, just wait for the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, set to open in 2025. Gehry’s “Core Project” interior renovation of the PMA opened in May 2021. From Dec 2020 to Mar 2021, the Spurs Gallery in Beijing showed the work of Gaetano Pesce (2005) in the exhibition Gaetano Pesce: In China. As part of an exhibition at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Philippe Starck (1997) has designed a modern gondola as a “symbol for the future of Venice.” The Dream of Winter Gondola is made of laminated, compressed bamboo, with a mini electric turbine powered by solar energy, a hydro-generator. From May to September 2021, the Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple presented Learning to See: Denise Scott Brown (1994) an exhibition of billboard-sized photographs of cities and landscapes. Six months after Jack Lenor Larsen’s (1991) death in January 2020, the exhibition “Jack, Larger Than Life” was on view in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods, LongHouse Pavilion. A book about the exhibition, which closed in Sept 2021, is expected. The classic Niels Diffrient (1989) Smart Office Chair has been reimagined by Humanscale using plastic from recycled fishing nets. Called Smart Ocean, each chair is formed from one kilogram of netting, collected from the ocean and turned into pellets. Gary Hustwit’s new book, The New York City Map Debate, about Massimo Vignelli (1988) and the development of the city’s iconic subway map is out, with a foreword by Paula Scher (2012). The Modern Chair, an exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum from Sept 2021 to April 3, 2022 features the work of George Nakashima (1986), Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Gehry (2008) and others. The full-length documentary George Nakashima, Woodworker, premiered at Design Miami. Nakashima, who died in 1990, was the first Design Excellence Award recipient.
2021 Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
2020 No award given
2019 Anniversary
2018 Dieter Rams
2017 Patricia Urquiola
2016 Oki Sato, Faye Toogood & Zanini de Zanine
2015 Bruce Mau
2014 Rolf Fehlbaum of Vitra
2013 Marc Newson
2012 Paula Scher and Seymour Chwast
2011 Zaha Hadid
2010 Alberto Alessi
2009 Marcel Wanders
2008 Frank O. Gehry
2006 Georg Jensen
2005 Gaetano Pesce
2004 Florence Knoll Bassett
2003 Richard Gluckman
2002 Ingo Maurer
2001 No award given
2000 Milton Glaser
1999 Jonathan Ive, Maya Lin, and Karim Rashid
1998 Sir Terence Conran
1997 Philippe Starck and Ian Schrager
1996 Richard Meier
1995 Michael Graves
1994 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
1993 Swid Powell
1991 Jack Lenor Larsen
1989 Niels Diffrient
1988 Vignelli Associates
1986 George Nakashima
