Florence Knoll in Miami
Is Miami the new Bilbao?
The city is staking its claim as a design hotspot, and it’s hard to deny, given the number of high-profile architects at work. Frank Gehry is doing a symphony hall, Herzog & de Meuron is building an art museum and a park by Maya Lin opened last week in front of a new federal courthouse by Arquitectonica. All that on top Art Basel, the annual confab which draws design’s fraternity of fabulousness.
Now Miami has its own design award with a heavyweight name attached. On Friday the Wolfsonian, a design and decorative arts museum based in Miami Beach, announced the Florence Knoll award, to be given for the first time next year.
The award is named for Florence Knoll Bassett, 89, a surviving member of mid-century modernism’s founding royalty and a Miami resident.
Along with her husband, Hans Knoll, she helped bring modern furniture into the American home and workplace in the 1940s and 1950s. The 120 pieces she designed, including the sofa shown here, are considered among the most influential of the period. As an architect, she helped create some of the first modernist offices for CBS, the Rockefeller family and other prominent clients. Carl Magnusson, an architect who acted as master of ceremonies at Friday’s event, called her “the grand dame of 20th century design.”
Zaha Hadid will chair the first awards jury, which only ads to the award’s design cred and assures a strong roster of jurors.
So what does the award do for Miami? “It links us to a widely recognized local figure,” said Cathy Leff, director of the Wolfsonian, “and it puts on the international map.”
The city is staking its claim as a design hotspot, and it’s hard to deny, given the number of high-profile architects at work. Frank Gehry is doing a symphony hall, Herzog & de Meuron is building an art museum and a park by Maya Lin opened last week in front of a new federal courthouse by Arquitectonica. All that on top Art Basel, the annual confab which draws design’s fraternity of fabulousness.
Now Miami has its own design award with a heavyweight name attached. On Friday the Wolfsonian, a design and decorative arts museum based in Miami Beach, announced the Florence Knoll award, to be given for the first time next year.
The award is named for Florence Knoll Bassett, 89, a surviving member of mid-century modernism’s founding royalty and a Miami resident.
Along with her husband, Hans Knoll, she helped bring modern furniture into the American home and workplace in the 1940s and 1950s. The 120 pieces she designed, including the sofa shown here, are considered among the most influential of the period. As an architect, she helped create some of the first modernist offices for CBS, the Rockefeller family and other prominent clients. Carl Magnusson, an architect who acted as master of ceremonies at Friday’s event, called her “the grand dame of 20th century design.”
Zaha Hadid will chair the first awards jury, which only ads to the award’s design cred and assures a strong roster of jurors.
So what does the award do for Miami? “It links us to a widely recognized local figure,” said Cathy Leff, director of the Wolfsonian, “and it puts on the international map.”
Posted by: Michael Cannell on Mar 7, 07 at 01:20 PM PST
