Presidential Design Award National Design Award National Arts Club Gold Medal AIGA Gold Medal Honorary Doctorate, Parsons School of Design Honorary Doctorate, Corcoran School of Art
Lella Vignelli (born Elena Valle; August 13, 1934 – December 22, 2016) was an Italian architect, designer, and businesswomen. She collaborated closely throughout much of her life with her husband Massimo Vignelli, with whom she founded Vignelli Associates in 1971.[1]
She was known for the "spare, elegant style" of her architectural and industrial design work, as well as her management skills and entrepreneurial expertise.[2]
In the mid-1950s, Lella Vignelli's professional concentration was interior, furniture, and product design.[7] She was also involved in the formation of the ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), an Italian professional design organization.[7]
In 1959, she joined architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago as a junior interior designer. The following year the Vignellis established the Massimo and Lella Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. Lella specialized in interior architecture, furniture, exhibition, and product design.[8][9]
She was one of the founders of the corporate design consultancy Unimark International, along with Massimo, Bob Noorda, and Ralph Eckerstrom.[7][10] At Unimark, Lella Vignelli served as the head of the interior design department in Milan beginning in 1965, and later in New York.[11]
Some of the Vignellis' notable designs from this period are their brand identity commissions for clients such as Knoll International, for which they led a comprehensive review of the company's visual presence starting in 1965; the graphic identity and logo of American Airlines, designed in 1967; as well the design of as a collection of melamine plastic stacking dinnerware for Articoli Plastici Elettrici (later marketed in America by Heller).[7][12] The design was awarded the Compasso d'Oro in 1964,[13] and was still in production and sold as Vignelli Stacking Dinnerware in 2023, nearly 60 years after it was first introduced.[13][14][15][16][17]
In 1971, the Vignellis established Vignelli Associates and opened offices in New York, Paris, and Milan.[11][18][19] As Vignelli Associates, their work included corporate identity design alongside publication, exhibition, furniture, product, jewellery, and clothing design.[7][20] Lella focussed on the three-dimensional design work of the practice, and also served as Executive Vice President and later Chief Executive Officer.[11]
The firm's commissions included corporate identity programmes for Bloomingdale's department store in 1972, Lancia automobiles in 1978, and Ducati motorcycles in 1992, as well as the signage system for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 1997.[7] Vignelli Associates was commissioned to design the graphic identity, signage systems, and subway map for the New York City Subway in 1972. The design was based on "abstract simplicity"[21] with all of the subway lines indicated using straight, vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines arranged at either 45 or 90 degree angles. Each subway line is indicated using a unique color, while the stops are designated with a simple black dot. This color-scheme is repeated on the corresponding colored circular icons on the signage throughout the subway system, platforms, and trains.[21][22] That map was met with some criticism for being difficult to understand, although it has been described as "a cult phenomenon for generations of graphic designers".[23]
In 1978, the Vignellis founded Vignelli Designs, a separate company which focused on product and furniture design, and for which Lella served as president.[11] Their furniture designs included the Handkerchief chair for Knoll (1985); the Serenissimo table (1985) for Italian manufacturer Acerbis;[24] and the Magic coffee table (1990) for Acerbis's lower-priced Morphos label.[7][25] Other Vignelli designs have included retail layouts for Artemide, jewelry for Cleto Munari, and glassware for Venini and Steuben Glass Works.[7]
LelIa Vignelli also collaborated closely with the architect Denise Scott Brown, and was a frequent speaker and juror for national and international design organizations.[26] She was a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), the International Furnishings and Designer Association
(IFDA), and the Decorators Club of New York.
Lella and Massimo Vignelli were described as "iconic, impossibly exotic characters" in New York Magazine.[21] In 1982, they were both awarded the AIGA Gold Medal for their achievements and contributions to design. The AIGA described their design output together as "prodigious in quantity, far-ranging in media and scope and consistent in excellence."[27]
Lella Vignelli died in her home in Manhattan on December 22, 2016, at age 82 from dementia.[2][27][31]
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
[edit]Vignelli Center for Design Studies, Rochester Institute of Technology
In 2008 Massimo and Lella Vignelli agreed to donate the entire archive of their design work to the Rochester Institute of Technology, near Rochester, New York. The archive, which contains c. 500,000 items including "sketches, prototypes, models, technical plans, correspondence, contracts, mechanicals, photographs, material samples, videos, and digital files" is held in a new building, designed by the Vignellis, called The Vignelli Center for Design Studies, which opened in September 2010.[32] As well as display, storage, and conservation facilities for the archives, the Vignelli Center includes exhibition spaces, meeting rooms, classrooms, and offices.[10][33][34]
^Colombo, Alessandro (14 December 2022). "Nani Valle e Giorgio Bellavitis, che coppia!" [Nani Valle and Giorgio Bellavitis, what a couple!]. Giornale dell'Architettura (in Italian). Archived from the original on 4 October 2023. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
^ abcdeColman, David (29 October 2007). "Design Revolutionaries". New York. Archived from the original on 26 January 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2016. Fabien Baron, Mario Buatta, Santiago Calatrava, Joe D'urso, Jack Lenor Larsen, Martha Stewart, Massimo and Lella Vignelli, Eva Zeisel and twenty-five other New Yorkers who designed the world we live in
