Alexander Girard

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Alexander Hayden Girard (born May 24, 1907 in New York City , † December 31, 1993 in Santa Fe , New Mexico ) was an American architect , interior designer , designer , art collector and patron . He designed textiles, wallpaper, furniture, lettering and corporate design . He also designed exhibitions and interiors . His colorful motifs partly show geometric shapes, partly stylized ornaments based on objects in nature. With his wife Susan, he amassed a collection of folk art that has been on display at the Santa Fe Museum of International Folk Art since 1978 .

Life

Family and education

Alexander Girard was born in New York City in 1907. His father Carlo Matteo Girard was Italian with French ancestry, his mother Lezlie, nee Cutler, was American. Alexander Girard, named by his parents as Sandro , had a brother and a sister. He grew up bilingual (English / Italian) in Florence , where the family lived in the La Lucciola estate and his father ran an antique shop.

Alexander Girard attended the English boarding school Bedford Modern School from the age of ten . Far from home and separated from his family, he began to think of an imaginary country, the Republic of Fife . For this purpose he designed maps, flags, banknotes, coins, stamps and games. In his ideas for pictures he used motifs from the Italian Renaissance , for example the coat of arms of the Florentine guilds . After finishing school in 1924, Girard studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and graduated with honors in 1929. He then studied architecture at the Scuola Reale di Architettura in Rome in 1930/1931 . He also worked for architects in Paris and Stockholm until 1932. From 1932 to 1935 he studied architecture at New York University , which gave him permission to set up as a self-employed architect (Registered architect) in the United States. He then became a member of the Architectural League of New York and the American Institute of Decorators .

First jobs as an interior designer

From the very beginning, Girard was interested in the creation of interior furnishings and design. One of his first orders was to equip the showrooms of the Florentine Artisans' Guild at the World Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929 , for which he was awarded a gold medal. From 1932 to 1937 he ran a design office in Manhattan , where he offered furniture and other furnishings for private customers. In addition, retail stores and restaurants were among his customers. His interior design for the New York Café Trouville on East 52nd Street received a lot of attention . He adorned the walls with views of European cities, which were supposed to radiate internationality as well as the toast, Prosit , which was varied in twenty languages and which could be seen on table tops and glasses.

Married and worked in Michigan

Alexander Girard married Susan Needham (1910–1996) in 1936. From this marriage the son Marshall C. and the daughter Sansi were born. In 1937 he moved with his family to Detroit to work for interior designer Thomas A. Esling . In 1943 Girard designed the canteen for the radio manufacturer Detrola in Dearborn and designed housings for the company's radio sets . He replaced the previously historicizing design of the products with simple shapes. Also in 1943 he designed new office furnishings for the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn. In 1946 the order for the interior design of the cafeteria of the Lincoln Motor Company in Detroit followed.

In 1945 Girard opened a design shop in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe , in which he sold toy and decorative figures made of plywood and wood and from 1947 onwards showed small exhibitions. The first house planned by Alexander Girard was built in Grosse Point and he and his family moved into it in 1948. The exhibition For Modern Living at the Detroit Institute of Arts, curated by him , was a great success for Girard in 1949 . 150,000 visitors were able to get to know everyday objects, toys and textiles in a new design. The exhibits included plywood chairs by Charles and Ray Eames , which were shown to the public for the first time. A close friendship developed with the Eames couple. The architects and designers George Nelson and Eero Saarinen also belonged to the Girards' circle of friends.

Work for the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller

In the fall of 1951 Girard took over the management of the textile department at the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller in Zeeland in the US state of Michigan . He brought out his first textile collection for the company in 1952 and then designed around 300 patterns for wallpaper, curtain and upholstery fabrics in more than 20 years. Girard worked closely with furniture designers such as George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames in the company. He also supported the Eames couple in the production of the 1957 documentary Day of the Dead about the cult of the dead in Mexico on the Día de los Muertos .

The high-quality furnishing and upholstery fabrics were mostly characterized by strong colors. For example, he combined colors such as red, pink, orange and purple, which was unusual until then. His motifs ranged from simple geometric shapes like circles, triangles or squares to letters or patterns like Pepita . In addition, he chose motifs from nature such as suns or vegetable shapes. In addition, he repeatedly resorted to traditional folk art motifs, especially from Central and South America. He worked with paper cutouts, stamp prints, collages or with layers of tracing paper and compiled these designs in numerous sample books.

In addition to Latin America, Asia was an important source of inspiration for Girard. In 1954 he traveled to India, where he mainly collected fabrics and handicrafts. From this he arranged the exhibition Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India , which was shown in 1955 in the New York Museum of Modern Art . Here, as an eye-catcher, he had a 17-meter-long water basin built in the center, around which twelve golden columns were arranged and decorated with panels of fabric. 300,000 visitors were enthusiastic about the oriental show. Following this success, the Indian government commissioned Girard in 1965 to design the traveling exhibition Nehru: His Life and His India on modern India under the government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru .

In 1961 he set up the Textiles & Objects Shop for Herman Miller in New York . Here he showed his fabric designs, decorative objects and folk art. This business only existed until 1963, but received a lot of attention due to corresponding press publications. The Enviromental Enrichment Panels, designed in 1971, were among his last significant designs . For these fabric-covered room elements, he chose motifs such as Hand and Dove , Snake or Knot in the style of Pop Art . His Love Heart design for Valentine's Day 1972 was particularly popular and has been offered on various products since then.

Significant interiors

Girard Residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Girard moved with his family to Santa Fe , New Mexico , in 1953 and continued to work for Herman Miller from there. He bought a 200 year old mud house in Santa Fe, where he lived until his death in 1993. The house served him as a living laboratory, which he repeatedly remodeled and in which he tried things out. This included the color scheme of the walls, a kitchen cube in the dining room and a color-coordinated shelf system. The style-defining interior design of the house was published in numerous architecture, living and fashion magazines and served as a template for other interior designs by Girard. For example, in 1957 he set up director Billy Wilder's home in Los Angeles .

Miller House in Columbus, Indiana

Irwin Miller, President of the engine manufacturer Cummins Engine , commissioned the architect Eero Saarinen in the early 1950s to build a new home in Columbus , Indiana . The building for Miller and his family was built between 1953 and 1957 with the involvement of architect Kevin Roche and landscape architect Dan Kiley . Alexander Girard was responsible for the interior design and planned in close cooperation with the Millers. Particularly noticeable was the living room with a square recess as a frame for upholstered benches. There were also shelves in different colors and carpets, pillows, candlesticks and other decorative items designed by Girard. The other rooms such as the dining room, kitchen and bedroom were designed by Girard. After the house was completed, Girard continued to advise the Millers on the interior design and offered them objects from his folk art collection.

La Fonda del Sol restaurant , New York

The La Fonda del Sol restaurant, which specializes in Latin American cuisine, was located on the ground floor of the Time & Life Building , an extension of the Rockefeller Center in New York City completed in 1959 . On behalf of Restaurant Associates , Girard designed the interior design and appearance for the themed restaurant with 365 seats. While the chairs were from Charles and Ray Eames, the patterns for the seat covers came from Girard. The central motif of the restaurant was a sun logo that Girard designed in more than 40 variations for placemats, matchboxes, sugar cube packaging, menus and serving trolleys. He developed large-format suns made of glass and brass as wall decorations, folk art objects served as decoration. For the colorful design, Girard received a silver medal from the Architectural League of New York in 1962 . The restaurant existed from 1960 to 1971.

L'Etoile Restaurant, New York

The L'Etoile was a restaurant serving fine French cuisine at Hotel The Sherry-Netherland on the New York Fifth Avenue . It had 275 places on four levels. Girard designed a striking banister with a geometric grid of triangles as a connecting element. He did without too much color in the interior decoration and instead used acrylic glass panes for interior design on which the names of 500 French people could be read. The simple black and white lettering of the restaurant matched this. For the chairs he used the colors of the French tricolor and for the table tops he chose a stylized daisy as a motif.

John Deere Mural in Moline, Illinois

In June 1964, the agricultural machinery manufacturer Deere & Company moved into its new administration building in Moline , Illinois, designed by Girard's friend Eero Saarinen . Girard designed a three-dimensional mural in a glass showcase with a length of about 60 meters and a height of about three meters. In a similar way, he had designed a six-meter-long shop window for the greeting card manufacturer Hallmark Cards in Kansas City (Missouri) in 1962 . The Joon Deere Murial represents the company's history from the plow from 1837 to the manufacture of tractors. Girard did not use a chronological sequence. Instead, he arranged the various exhibits such as photographs, company advertising, agricultural objects and company documents according to harmonious aspects.

Corporate design for Braniff International Airways

Exterior painting of a Boeing 707 from Braniff International Airways designed by Alexander Girard in the color "light green" introduced in 1967. The company's logo, also designed by Girard, at the rear

Lawrence Harding, President of Braniff International Airways , commissioned Girard in 1965 to develop a new corporate design . The modernized appearance of the airline was under the motto “The end of the plain plane” (meaning: the end of the ordinary airplane ). The company's aircraft were given a monochrome paint job in one of seven colors, with Braniff using the colors regardless of the type of aircraft used. The choice of colors was heavily modified in 1967 by the Harper & George design office . Girard also designed the interior, service vehicles, lounges and furniture, developed a new font and a new logo, and designed printed matter, serviettes and playing cards. The uniforms of the stewardesses in the sensational astronaut look came from the Italian fashion designer Emilio Pucci .

Folk art collector

Alexander Girard and his wife Susan began collecting folk art in the late 1930s . The Museum of International Folk Art was created for this purpose in 1953 . On their numerous travels up until the 1980s they collected more than 100,000 pieces from more than 100 countries. This included textiles, toys, crib figures and other objects. The couple established the Girard Foundation for this collection in 1962 . 170 nativity scenes from the collection were on public display in Santa Fe in 1961. The following year this exhibition was shown under the title The Nativity at the Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City (Missouri) . The show The Magic of a People at the world exhibition HemisFair 1968 in San Antonio with numerous objects of folk art from the Girard collection was also a great success . In 1978 the Girard Foundation donated its extensive collection to the Santa Fe Museum of International Folk Art , which increased its holdings fivefold. A wing of the building opened in 1982 displays around 10,000 objects from the Girard collection.

Exhibitions on the work of Alexander Girard

Various works by Alexander Girard are in collections of museums such as the Detroit Institute of Arts or the Museum of Modern Art . In addition, several institutions showed his designs in numerous overview exhibitions on 20th century design. Especially after his death, several museums paid tribute to his oeuvre in exhibitions. These included the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, which showed The Opulent Eye of Alexander Girard from 2000 to 2001 . Another exhibition was Alexander Girard. Vibrant Modern , which was on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 2006 to 2007 . The Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein presented the Alexander Girard: A Designer's Universe exhibition from 2016 to 2017 . The Vitra Design Museum also houses the Alexander Girard design estate.

Awards

literature

  • Gloria Fowler: Alexander Girard Coloring Book . AMMO Books, Pasadena 2014, ISBN 978-1-934429-86-0 .
  • Henry Glassie: The spirit of folk art, the Girard Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art . Abrams, New York 1989, ISBN 0-8109-1522-7 .
  • Mateo Kries, Jochen Eisenbrand (Eds.): Alexander Girard: A Designer's Universe . Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein 2016, ISBN 3-945852-05-6 .
  • Todd Oldham, Kiera Coffee: Alexander Girard . AMMO Books, Los Angeles 2011, ISBN 978-1-934429-84-6 .
  • Leslie A. Piña: Alexander Girard designs for Herman Miller . Schiffer, Atglen 2002, ISBN 0-7643-1579-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ian Nicholson: Braniff International - Airline Focus . In: Flightpath Vol. 2, p. 104
  2. ↑ Information on the exhibition The Opulent Eye of Alexander Girard at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  3. ↑ Information on the Alexander Girard exhibition . Vibrant Modern at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
  4. ↑ Information on the exhibition Alexander Girard: A Designer's Universe in the Vitra Design Museum
personal data
SURNAME Girard, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Girard, Alexander Hayden (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect, interior designer, designer, collector and patron
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1993
Place of death Santa Fe (New Mexico)