James Zemaitis Names His Design Greats

I would have to say I do feel that my own bias is very American oriented. I consider myself to be
an Americanist overall. It’s what I studied back in school, and I continue to be obsessed with
mid-century American industrial designers and post-war American woodworkers, what we call
the studio furniture makers or the craftsmen. And yet at the same time in today’s climate, there
are very few American designers who have really achieved international renown. It’s very much
shifted to Europe, but also to Japan and Brazil, and pretty much everywhere other than America
in terms of design. As opposed to architecture which is an entirely different story in terms of who
has achieved fame and prominence.

To me my big heroes chronologically speaking, Gerard Rietveld, Alva Aalto, Poul Kjaerholm
but also amongst Americans Russel Wright, Isamu Noguchi, who is both an artist and a furniture
designer, the perfect hybrid, which is what I’m really all bout when it comes to the marketing of
these designers. I’m a huge admirer of Jasper Morrison. I absolutely love the entire school of
designers coming out of the Netherlands today. There are really almost too many to count at this
point. And every year it seems as though four or five great designers are being launched from the
Netherlands at a gallery like moss here in New York. I also love Hans Wegner who just passed
away last year. I think he’s one of the great chair designers of the 20th century, almost so
perfectly anonymous. I think sometimes almost half of America doesn’t even realize that they
are sitting on a Hans Wegner chair. And he was so modest that he didn’t name any of his chairs
as well, which I think has made it more difficult for people today to know what to call what he
did; as opposed to some of the other designers which are just colorful, colorful names.

Most of the great architects of the 20th century have dabbled in design and have created master
works. And so you can’t have a conversation without mentioning these Breuer, Aalto, Rietveld
architects who did furniture. I love what Frank Lloyd Wright did, but I do not like his furniture. I
find it inherently gloomy and uncomfortable.