Designer of the Twentieth Century, Alexander Girard

Folk art Church from the Girard foundation, Santa Fe New Mexico

We like to high light the lives of famous designers of the twentieth century.  Alexander Girard, 1907 – 1993 is a American born, multicultural architect trained twentieth century designer of note.  His mother, an American married his father, a Frenchman, after his birth in New York City, they moved to Florence, Italy where he was educated.  He was trained as an Architect, but his design talents varied over a wide arrange of objects and materials.  He honed his skills both in Italy, where he was exposed to some of the greatest architect designers of the period and in New York.

Alexander Girard 1907-1993

He is particularly know for his Textile design work on the cutting edge of design though his work for Herman Miller Design 1952-1975.  He worked creating fabrics for furniture designer by George Nelson, and Charles and Ray Eames.  Together they formed a design team that has influenced the fundamentals of design not only in the United States but the entire rest of the world. His  designs were based on geometrical shapes and forms related to architectural forms.

Pair of Chairs by Girard Herman Miller

He designed for the Braniff Airlines in the 1960's.  This was an effort on the part of Braniff to end the rein of the plain plane.  He worked on everything from the fabrics, the color of the plane itself, the ticket counters even the sugar paper packets.  Braniff had also hired Emilio Pucci to design the flight attendants uniforms.  Girard's colors ranged from both light and dark shades of blue to turquoise, oranges, beige, and tonal yellow.  These colors were used on the planes themselves to make them identifiable with the Braniff brand.  He designed a line of furniture for their ticket offices and the customer lounges, this was produced by Herman Miller and was available to the public in 1967 for one year only.

Sofa designed for Braniff Airlines

He designed the interiors of several major restaurants all over the world.  He did table settings for George Jensen, 1956, that included  flat ware, china and mats.  Girard designed a Mural for the John Deere company.  It consisted of found three dimensional objects.  In 1956, along with Charles Eames, he produced the documentary film, " The Day of The Dead."  Girard brought Italian style to American design.  He was a Renaissance man.

Designs by Alexande Girard

Girard and his wife were collectors of folk art.  They accumulated a large collection from all over the world.  They founded The Girard Foundation, 1962, to house their huge collection of Folk Art.

Fabric Design by Girard

Lady GaGa and Our Chandelier

We are seriously excited.  We were contacted last week by a designer to see if we would be willing to rent them a very large chandelier for a performance.  They inquired about several of the chandeliers that we had on our 1stdibs website.  They needed something white.  The Murano ones required too much work to break down and to put back together.  But one was just right.the very large globed chandelier attributed to Stilnovo.

 Massive Globed Chandelier Attributed to Stilnovo 

Not knowing where this was going or who was preforming we took down the chandelier and packed up the globes ready for pick up.  No sooner than we had gotten it down and packed up.  The delivery man was there to pick it up.  The label read The Washington Convention Center.  This got our curiosity up.  So we googled the event center to see if we could figure it out.  Maybe an Inaugural Ball?  It was exciting to think that maybe we had a little something to do with the inauguration.  It was not until today that we learned what had occurred.  The Chandelier was delivered to us safe and all together.  Today the designer who had rented it called to make sure that everything was intact.  She then proceeded to tell us where it had been and then sent us a photo of the piece in place during the preformance by Lady GaGa.  Who would have thought that a chandelier hanging in a shop in the tiny town of Kilmarnock Virginia would have a piece that was an important prop in a preformance by Lady GaGa and Tony Bennett for the President of the United States on his second Inauguration.  All I can say is WOW.  

Lady GaGa and Tony Bennett

André Bloc His Sculptures and Art

André Bloc,1896-1966, was born in Algeria and moved to France while still a child.  He studied engineering. 

Building Muedon House 2

He began working after his studies with motors and turbines.  He met Le Corbusier and was greatly influenced by him.  After this meeting, Bloc became interested in architecture.    In 1940 he decided to turn his efforts to sculpture.  You can definitely see the relationship of his sculptures to architecture.  They had an almost organic feel as if the were cells of a living organism.

Interior of Muedon House 2

He founded the group "Espace," their goal was to try to bring to the urban world the ideals of constructivism and neo-plasticism.  The members of this group were artist and urbanist.  They considered all forms of art, architecture, and painting as a social phenomenon.

Close up of Muedon 2

Some of the best blends of Architecture and sculpture by Bloc can be found at the site of his home in Meudon, France.  He built his 'Follies" on his own property the third and last completed the year that he died 1966. 

The last piece of the Puzzle the Tower House 3 completed in 1966

Besides his sculptures and his architecture he designed furniture appropriate for his architectural designs. 

Rare Table Designed by Andre Bloc

Chair designed by Bloc for Bellevue House at Muedon

 Being a design genius he also did paintings in the manner of his sculptures and the anamorphic architecture he produced.  His designs and colors of his paintings belie that fact that he originally went into engineering.  These and his sculptures and architecture come from the mind and heart of a true artist. 

Above two different paintings by Andre Bloc.