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Iconic American interior designer, businesswoman, and fashion icon Iris Apfel dies at 102

2024-03-06T11:18:00-05:00

Iris Apfel, an iconoclast interior designer who drew praise for her style and fashion collection, passed away last week at the age of 102. The New York Times is reporting on her influence in the design world this week following her death on March 1st.

Through the work of her label Old World Weavers, the Queens native became a commercial success designing the White House's interiors and remained an influence in that realm for many subsequent generations. Apfel picked up her famous eye from her father, who designed and installed mirrors during New York City’s first skyscraper boom. Throughout her lucky turn at celebrity, she remained a vocal advocate for quality. She also taught a textile design course at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011.

“There’s very little creativity left. Everybody copies everybody else,” she said to AnOther magazine in 2018. “I don’t know whether everybody wants the same or the designers give it to them – I have no idea, I’ve been out of it for too long ...

Vivienne Westwood, doyenne of punk rock British fashion, passes away aged 81

2022-12-30T12:01:00-05:00

Celebrated fashion designer Vivienne Westwood passed away peacefully at her home in South London, The Guardian reported late Thursday.

The 81-year-old Dame was behind some of Britain’s more salient countercultural movements, becoming synonymous with the late-70s punk rock scene in London and later playing an outsize role in the early-career development of her muse, Naomi Campbell.

Known as much for her outspoken activism on issues such as nuclear proliferation, civil rights, the environment, and other social justice issues as she was for her clothing line and collaboration with Malcolm McLaren, Westwood’s influence in the broader world of design is hard to overstate.

Zaha Hadid was among the torrent of prominent figures within the UK to have worked with Westwood on collaborations for shoes, flagship boutiques, clothing lines, and even home designs on her way to becoming the “U...

Authorship dispute erupts over Europe's tallest skyscraper in St. Petersburg

2018-08-08T15:57:00-04:00

A row has broken out between former RMJM international group design director Tony Kettle and a Russian architect over who designed Europe’s new tallest building – an 87-storey skyscraper near St Petersburg. Staff at Moscow-based firm Gorproject have accused Scottish practice The Kettle Collective of trying to claim ‘authorship’ over energy giant Gazprom’s mammoth tower, currently nearing completion on the Gulf of Finland.

As Europe's tallest skyscraper nears completion, a dispute has erupted over the authorship of the completed project. The Moscow-based firm Gorproject claims design authorship over the Lakhta Center, while Tony Kettle claims the delivered design is his concept while working at RMJM. Letters on the issue were sent to the RIBA, the RIAS, and the Union of Architects of Russia. A statement from the client, Gazprom, asserts the design was RMJM’s original 2011 concept with Tony Kettle as design director.

Apple's Jony Ive, considered a "poet" by Norman Foster, discusses the architecture of Apple's new campus

2017-07-27T12:28:00-04:00

Apple Park is unlike any other product Ive has worked on. There will be only one campus—in contrast to the ubiquity of Apple’s phones and computers—and it doesn’t fit in a pocket or a hand. Yet Ive applied the same design process he brings to technological devices: prototyping to minimize any issues with the end result and to narrow what he calls the delta between the vision and the reality of a project.

“A lot of the buildings that are being built at the moment are products of software-only cultures,” says Ive. “Because we understand making, we’ll build [a prototype] and try it and use it, and see what works and what doesn’t.”