Remembering Lella Vignelli (1934–2016)

Lella Vignelli was born in Udine, Italy. She received a degree from the School of Architecture, University of Venice, and became a registered architect in Milan in 1962. In 1958, she received a tuition fellowship as a special student at the School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. In 1959, Ms. Vignelli joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Chicago, as designer in the interiors department. The following year, with Massimo Vignelli, she established the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. In 1965, she became head of the interiors department for Unimark International Corporation in Milan and in New York (1966).

In 1971, the Vignellis established Vignelli Associates. Seven years later, they formed Vignelli Designs, a company dedicated to product and furniture design, of which she was President. Ms. Vignelli’s work was widely featured in design publications in the United States and abroad. Examples of her work are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Montreal, and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.

A monographic exhibition of the Vignellis’ work toured Europe between 1989 and 1993, and was featured in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Helsinki, London, Budapest, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Munich, Prague and Paris.

Ms. Vignelli was the recipient of many awards including the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Industrial Arts Medal, 1973; AIGA Gold Medal, 1983; Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988; National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design, 1991; Interior Product Designers Fellowship of Excellence, 1992; The Brooklyn Museum Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, 1995; The Russel Wright Award for Design Excellence, 2001. In 2003 Lella and Massimo Vignelli received the National Design Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2005 Architectural Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was also the recepient of Honorary Doctorates from the Parsons School of Design, New York; the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C. and the President Medal of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY.