Hasta La Ideas

“Guinness was very close to her grandmother [Diana Mitford], although she was appalled by her politics, and was with her when she died, in Paris, in 2003. She remains dismayed that Diana never publicly recanted her admiration for Hitler, whom Diana had got to know in the thirties after travelling to Germany to visit her sister Unity, who had become part of der Fuhrer’s inner circle. ‘My grandmother had grown up in the countryside, and she hadn’t been to school, and then she goes to Germany, and Unity is there, and then she becomes very, very friendly with him,’ Guinness said. ‘I can’t imagine he was charming—he’s the most uncharming person I’ve ever seen, Hitler.’ She recalled discussing the matter with Diana. ‘I said, “Granny, it just can’t be right,” and she just said, “He didn’t photograph well.” She said he was very, very funny.’ When the war broke out, Diana spent three years in London’s Holloway prison. ‘She told me she read a lot of Racine,’ Guinness said. Meanwhile, when Britain declared war on Germany, Unity Mitford shot herself in the head. ‘Why didn’t Unity shoot Hitler instead of herself?’ Guinness said. ‘Then we’d be descended from heroes instead of villains.’”

–Rebecca Mead, writing in the September 26 issue of The New Yorker about fashion icon and “precarious beauty” Daphne Guinness, who is the subject of an exhibition on view through January 7, 2012 at the Museum at FIT

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Today marks the halfway point of the currently-running London Design Festival, and now the annual even has crowned its king. At a ceremony in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the fest’s top prize, the London Design Medal, was awarded to Ron Arad. “Thank you London,” the designer/architect said at the event, “I couldn’t imagine doing whatever I’m doing anywhere else in the world.” Arad now joins the ranks of the likes of Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid, winners from previous years. Design Week spoke with festival director Ben Evans, who had this to say about the win:

He has carved out a market of his own and his work is now included in virtually every major collection. As professor of design products at the Royal College of Art for ten years, his influence on design and young designers has been huge and he has contributed greatly to the current generation of telented designers now dominating design.’

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While the next winner of the Pritzker Prize won’t be selected until sometime next spring (Eduardo Souto de Moura was the last to win it back in March), the organization has just announced two new members of its 2012 jury (pdf), one expected and one fairly surprising. Zaha Hadid falls in the “expected” category, given that she’s one of the biggest names in the business these days and took home the prize herself back in 2004. The “surprising” addition is Stephen Breyer, a sitting Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. While we were initially skeptical, thinking perhaps his addition was perhaps just a very odd PR move, the press release fills us in on Breyer’s long-standing interest in architecture, having penned an introduction to the book Celebrating The Courthouse: A Guide For Architects, Their Clients, And The Public and being awarded the Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts by the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (neither of which we knew existed) back in 2009. So we suppose he does have the clout to hang with the jury after all — though should we now be worried about his potential bias for courthouses and embassies? Whatever the case, here’s who he’ll be cooped up in the jury room with:

With the addition of Breyer and Hadid, the Pritzker jury will now consist of eight people, including its chairman, Lord Palumbo of the United Kingdom, and (alphabetically) Alejandro Aravena from Chile, architect and executive director of Elemental; Yung Ho Chang, who is an architect and educator from Beijing, China, and is currently a professor at MIT; Australian architect Glenn Murcutt who is the 2002 Pritzker Laureate; Juhani Pallasmaa of Finland, who is an architect, professor and author; and Karen Stein, a writer, editor and architectural consultant in the U.S. Martha Thorne, who is the associate dean for external affairs at the IE School of Architecture in Madrid, Spain, is the executive director.

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(Photo: Lyndon Douglas)

Design an awesome home for Adam Lindemann and the world will beat a path to your double-height, multipaneled bronze door, as will Design Miami, which will honor Tanzanian-born, London-based architect David Adjaye as Designer of the Year at this year’s fair (November 29-December 4 in Miami Beach). Awarded annually to an internationally renowned designer or studio “whose body of work demonstrates unmatched quality, innovation, and influence, while expanding the boundaries of design,” the honor has been bestowed in previous years on the likes of Zaha Hadid, Fernando and Humberto Campana, Maarten Baas, and Konstantin Grcic.

“Winning Designer of the Year is huge for me,” said Adjaye. “To win an award like this from the design community is really significant because so much of my work is about crossing platforms. Being recognized this year—which culminates in all of the work and research I’ve been doing in Africa—is extremely meaningful.” Of Ghanaian descent, Adjaye has spent ten years traveling to 53 cities throughout Africa to document the continent within an urban context. The resulting project, “Urban Africa: David Adjaye’s Photographic Survey,” includes more than 36,000 pictures, 3,000 of which were displayed at London’s Design Museum before traveling to other locations around the world.

Among the perks of winning Designer of the Year is the opportunity to whip up a site-specific installation for this year’s fair, and Adjaye has designed a triangular pavilion called “Genesis” (rendering at right) that will welcome visitors to Design Miami. The immersive environment will be constructed of hundreds of vertical wooden planks, with the interior formed by an oversized ovoid shape cut out from the center. Inside, Adjaye will provide seating (on a platform formed by cut-away timber frames) that affords views of the sky and surrounding environment. The Design Miami galleries will be visible through a curved window. According to Design Miami, “Genesis” represents the first time that Adjaye has combined structure, seating, window, and doors into a single gesture.

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“I’m an illustrator. I’ve been drawing since I was a kid in New Orleans. I started hanging around Jackson Square and learning different techniques. When I went to college in Florence, Italy and spent a little time in Palermo, Sicily, I took up fashion illustration, graphic design, and I worked on a couple of children’s books. Then I got jobs doing fashion illustrations, but there was something missing. I was alone in the room with a dress, and it wasn’t for me—I needed to be around people!”

-Fitness fanatic Richard Simmons, interviewed by Eddie Roche in today’s kickoff issue of The Daily, the ebullient tabloid distributed at Fashion Week show venues throughout New York City

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