George Nelson (designer)

Nelson was born on May 29, 1908 in Hartford, Connecticut to Simeon Nelson and Lillian Canterow Nelson.[3] His parents owned a drugstore.[4]

He graduated from Hartford Public High School in 1924, and thereafter attended Yale University.[3] He did not originally set out to become an architect; he happened upon the architecture school at Yale, when he ducked into a building during a rainstorm, in order to get out of the rain. Walking through the building, he came upon an exhibit of students' works entitled "A Cemetery Gateway".

Nelson met with some early recognition while still an undergraduate, when he was published in Pencil Points and Architecture magazines. During his final year at Yale, he was hired by the architecture firm Adams and Prentice as a drafter.

In 1928, he graduated with a degree in architecture. In 1929, Nelson was hired as a Teacher's Assistant while pursuing his second bachelor's degree at Yale. He received a degree in Fine Arts in 1931.

The next year, while preparing for the Paris Prize competition, he won the Rome Prize, a fellowship that allowed him to study architecture in Rome for two years[5] with a healthy stipend and accommodations in a palace.

While based in Rome, Nelson traveled through Europe where he met a number of the modernist pioneers, whom he interviewed for articles for Pencil Points magazine. While being interviewed by Nelson, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe asked about Frank Lloyd Wright, whom Nelson was embarrassed to say he did not know much about. Years later, however, Nelson would work with Wright on a special issue of Architectural Forum which catalyzed Wright's comeback from relative obscurity.

While in Rome Nelson married Frances Hollister.[3] A few years later, he returned to the United States to devote himself to writing. Through his articles in Pencil Points he introduced the work of Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Gio Ponti to North America.

In 1935, Nelson joined Architectural Forum, where he was first associate editor (1935–1943), and later consulting editor (1944–1949). There, he defended the modernist principles, arguing against colleagues who, as "industrial designers", made too many concessions to the commercial forces of the industry.

Nelson believed the work of a designer should be to better the world. In his view, nature was already perfect, but man ruined it by making things that didn't follow the rules of nature. "The contemporary architect, cut off from symbols, ornament and meaningful elaborations of structural form, all of which earlier periods processed in abundance, has desperately chased every functional requirement, every change in sight or ornamentation, every technical improvement, to provide some basis for starting his work. Where the limitations were most rigorous, as for example in a factory, or in a skyscraper where every inch had to yield its profit, there the designers were happiest and the results most satisfying but; let a religious belief or a social ideal replace the cubic foot costs or radiation losses, and nothing happened. There is not a single modern church in the entire country that is comparable to a first-rate cafeteria, as far as solving the problem is concerned."[6] At this point, Nelson’s career still mainly involved writing for architecture magazines and not actually designing the solutions to modern living that he would later become famous for. During this period George Nelson spent a great deal of time interviewing and exchanging ideas with the other founders of the modernist architecture movement of the 1940s, including Eliot Noyes, Charles Eames, and Walter B. Ford, all of whom he would later collaborate with.

By 1940, Nelson had become known for several innovative concepts. In his post-war book Tomorrow's House, co-authored with Henry Wright, he introduced the concept of the "family room", and the "storage wall". The storage wall was essentially the idea of recessed, built-in bookcases or shelving occupying space previously lost between walls. It was an idea developed while writing the book, when Nelson's publisher was pressuring him to finish the section on storage. Neither Wright nor Nelson could find any additional innovations when Nelson posed the question, "What's inside the wall?",[6] It was then that the idea of utilizing the space between walls for storage was born. Tomorrow's House was innovative because it didn't look at modern design as a case of styles, but instead looked at the way problems needed to be solved.[6] The book was a commercial success and made it onto the New York Times bestseller list.[4]

The bubble lamp, one of Nelson's designs.[7]

In 1945, the Herman Miller furniture company was producing mostly conventional, wood-based designs. After reading Tomorrow's House D.J. Depree, the Chairman of Herman Miller, selected Nelson to be the company's next Director of Design, despite Nelson having no experience designing furniture. Depree was more interested in Nelson's insight into the best way to make furniture innovative and useful. Nelson was offered a contract that allowed him the freedom to work outside of Herman Miller, and to use designs from other architects that Nelson had worked with. He became the Director of Design for Herman Miller in 1947, and held the position until 1972. The first Herman Miller catalog produced by Nelson was released in 1945. Over the following years it would include some of the most iconic home furnishings of the 20th century. Ray and Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Richard Schultz, Donald Knorr, and Isamu Noguchi all worked for Herman Miller, under Nelson's supervision. Although both Bertoia and Noguchi later expressed regrets about their involvement, it became a successful period for the company, and for George Nelson.

Using the money he earned as Director of Design for Herman Miller, in 1947 Nelson opened a design studio in New York City. On October 26, 1955 he incorporated it into George Nelson Associates, Inc., and moved to 251 Park Avenue South. The studio was successful in bringing together many of the top designers of the era, who were soon designing for Herman Miller under the George Nelson label. Among the noted designers who worked for George Nelson Associates, Inc. were Irving Harper, George Mulhauser (designer of the Coconut Chair), Robert Brownjohn (designer of the sets for the James Bond film Goldfinger), Don Chadwick, Bill Renwick, Suzanne Sekey, John Svezia, Ernest Farmer, Tobias O'Mara, Ronald Beckman (designer of the Sling Sofa), George Tscherny, (who designed the Herman Miller advertisements), Lance Wyman, and John Pile. With his studio, Nelson enacted new practices for the involvement of design in all aspects of the company, pioneering the practice of corporate image management, graphic programs, and signage. By the time the company closed in the mid-1980s George Nelson Associates, Inc. had worked with most of the Fortune 500 companies. George Nelson's architectural projects included what he dubbed "The Colombian Garden of Health", a 200-bed tertiary care hospital in Bogota, Colombia, commisoned by the Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogota.

In 1959, he remarried to Jacqueline Griffiths.[3] That same year, he served as the lead designer for the American National Exhibition in Moscow.[8]

Nelson retired with the closing of his studio in the mid-1980s. In 1984, he became a scholar in residence at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.[1] He died in New York City in 1986.[11]

The George Nelson Associates, Inc. catalog, and exhibition designs for Herman Miller, made modernism the most important driving force in the company. From his start in the mid-forties until the mid-eighties George Nelson Associates, Inc. partnered with most of the modernist designers of the time. This was both the result of Nelson's time as a magazine editor, and because of Nelson's writing. His skill as a writer helped legitimize and stimulate the field of industrial design by contributing to the creation of Industrial Design magazine in 1953.[6] Nelson wrote extensively, published several books, and organized conferences like the Aspen design gatherings, where for more than 30 years he was the guiding force.[6] In 1971, he received a grant from the Graham Foundation for his project "Hidden Cities". One of George Nelson's areas of interest was the reduction of pollution. Through his attempts to reduce all forms of pollution, including visual, audio, and chemical, Nelson pioneered the idea of the outdoor shopping mall, first using the idea in a proposal for the city plan of Austin, Texas, which was not used.

In 2008, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, held a retrospective of Nelson's work to celebrate his 100th birthday.[4] Design critic Alice Rawsthorn, covering the retrospective for The New York Times, argued that Nelson's contributions have been unfairly overlooked due to his association with the cubicle and jokey 1950s objects. "Blaming Nelson for the soullessness of today's open-plan offices seems as unfair as slating Le Corbusier for other architects' sloppily designed skyscrapers, or Marcel Duchamp for every lazy piece of conceptual art," she wrote. "[Nelson] championed the importance of values in design, which he saw as a catalyst for social change."[4]

"Coconut" Chair, 1958 Brooklyn Museum

"Ball" Wall Clock, 1948-1969 Brooklyn Museum

(# indicates designs currently available from Herman Miller)

• 1946 Slat Bench a/k/a Platform Bench #
• 1946 Basic Cabinet Series # (a number of these cabinets were reintroduced by Herman Miller in 2011)
• 1946 Sofas, chairs, settees, and bedroom pieces (all included in the first Herman Miller catalog)
• 1947 Bubble Lamp # (previously available from Howard Miller Clock company, then Modernica, but now available as of 2016 from Herman Miller)
• 1950 Ball clock # (likely designed by Irving Harper, originally made by Howard Miller, reintroduced by Vitra)
• 1952 Rosewood Group
• 1952 Executive Office Group
• 1954 Miniature Cases #[15]
• 1954 Steel-frame Group
• 1954 Nelson End Table (and low coffee table) #
• 1955 Flying Duck Chair
• 1955 Coconut Chair # (currently available in black leather only, but without the matching ottoman)
• 1956 Thin Edge Cases # (a number of these cabinets were reintroduced by Herman Miller in 2012)
• 1956 Kangaroo Chair
• 1958 Swagged-Leg (a/k/a/ Swag Leg) Group # (reintroduced by Herman Miller in 2011)
• 1959 Comprehensive Storage System (CSS)
• 1963 Catenary Group
• 1964 Action Office I (principally designed by Robert Propst)
• 1964 Sling Sofa & coffee table

His firm, George Nelson Associates, also designed a large series of wall and table clocks for the Howard Miller company, as well as a range of hanging Bubble Lamps, which had plastic membrane-covered wire-form shades, wrought iron fireplace pieces, planters, room dividers, ceiling-mounted "Ribbon Wall," spice cabinets, and many other products that became milestones in the history of a profession that he helped to shape.

A number of the nearly 300 classic wall and table clocks for Howard Miller Clock Company (including the Ball, Kite, Eye, Turbine, Spindle, Petal and Spike clocks, as well as a handful of desk clocks) are currently available from Vitra. Many were designed by Irving Harper (as well as Lucia Derespinis, Charles Pollock, and others). Subsequently, Vitra has discontinued some of their reproduction clocks based on sales.

All the original clock designs were simply assigned numbers by Howard Miller. Probably the most recognisable of the series, the Ball Clock, was advertised and sold as ‘Clock 4755’; the Sunflower Clock as ‘Clock 2261’. Several colour variations were available for many of the clocks. The Ball Clock was available in six colour variations, the Sunflower Clock in three. One of the more unusual designs, the Eye Clock (‘Clock 2238’) was pictured in the original Howard Miller Clock Company brochures in a diagonal position, not horizontal, as would be expected.[16]

• Abercrombie, Stanley (1995). George Nelson: The Design of Modern Design. MIT Press.
• Nelson, George (1977). How To See: Visual Adventures in a World God Never Made. Little, Brown.
• Nelson, George. "How to See: Visual Adventures in a World God Never Made." Phaidon Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-7148-7383-1.

• George Nelson Foundation
• GeorgeNelson.org (unofficial fan site)