This is A Thrill…

Design Research, the book and the store, in T. Hard copy this weekend, with bonus profile written by me of the amazing German toy designer Renate Muller (who is so D/R). More on that later.

Pilar Viladas writes:

In their prologue, the authors characterize Design Research as ‘‘a warm, eclectic, colorful and international version of modernism, one that mixed folk art and Mies van der Rohe, Noguchi and no-name Bolivian sweaters, offering newlyweds and Nobel Prize winners one-stop shopping for tools to eat, sleep, dress, even to party in a beautiful way.’’ By the time D/R closed (Thompson had lost control of the company eight years earlier), it had attracted a fan club that included Julia Child and Jackie Kennedy, and influenced retailers like Gordon Segal, the founder of Crate & Barrel, and Rob Forbes, who founded Design Within Reach. In his foreword to Thompson and Lange’s book, Forbes said that in 2000, when he conducted a customer survey of influential design stores, Design Research came out on top — and it had been closed for 22 years.

Read the rest of One-Stop Living here. Book also covered this week by Cool Hunting, ReadyMade and Mark Lamster (who didn’t know he had D/R to thank — in a roundabout way — for the very dishes from which he ate childhood dinners. Good taste starts young). Thanks all.

Observed

View all

Jobs

View all

Share on Social

By Alexandra Lange

Alexandra Lange is an architecture critic and author, and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner for Criticism, awarded for her work as a contributing writer for Bloomberg CityLab. She is currently the architecture critic for Curbed and has written extensively for Design Observer, Architect, New York Magazine, and The New York Times. Lange holds a PhD in 20th-century architecture history from New York University. Her writing often explores the intersection of architecture, urban planning, and design, with a focus on how the built environment shapes everyday life. She is also a recipient of the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from AIGA, an honor she shares with Design Observer’s Editor-in-Chief, Ellen McGirt.