Alexander Girard

United States

Person

Designer

Born 24.05.1907, New York City, USA Died 31.01.1993, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Alexander Girard moved with his family to Florence in 1909 and attended the Bedford Modern School in England from 1917 to 1924. He subsequently studied at the Architectural Association in London until 1929. After working as an interior designer in New York and relocating to Detroit, he opened his own design store in Grosse Pointe in 1945 and became chief designer for the radio manufacturer Detrola. In 1949, he organized the exhibition ‘For Modern Living’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts. From 1951, he directed Herman Miller’s Textiles Division and created more than 300 textile designs by 1973. Among his most significant projects were the interior of the Miller House in Columbus (1954–1957), the design of the restaurant La Fonda del Sol in New York (1960), the corporate identity for Braniff International (1965), and the Girard Furniture Group for Herman Miller (1967). Alongside his design work, he built an extensive folk art collection and donated more than 100,000 objects to the State of New Mexico in 1978. In 1982, the exhibition ‘Multiple Visions: A Common Bond’ opened at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. After the deaths of Alexander Girard in 1993 and his wife Susan in 1996, his estate was transferred to the Vitra Design Museum.