Starting the Day, and Year, with Celebration

Posted by Rebecca Goldberg on January 29 at 12:21 PM Tracing its fifty year history through video interviews and delightfully kitschy takes on office design through the ages, Contract magazine paused to celebrate the interiors industry with some 800 people who attended the Interiors Awards in New York City on January 29. It was early morning breakfast event that highlighted the best interior projects in a variety of sectors like corporate, healthcare and education design.

As Contract is most closely associated with office design, video scenes of the 70s (think mustaches and turtlenecks) and 80s (complete with a woman changing from sneakers into pumps) illustrated how culture, and cultural change, affect how people worked.

It fit in with the unwritten theme of the event: celebrating the past, and progressing into the future.

Of course, this event wraps up one of the most difficult years that architects and interior designers have faced in decades due to the recession.

Contract selected Graft, a global firm whose name symbolizes the bringing together of opposites, for its Designers of the Year award. Perhaps it was their outlook on twisting norms, turning mundane objects into artistic details and paving their own way that made the firm most fitting in this time and place.

In his acceptance speech, Lars Krückeberg, founding partner of Graft said “you have to lose your balance before you can move forward.” It should be known that he wore a crown and feather boa during his speech. It was a joke, and reference to Mardi Gras and Carnival, relevant because Graft is well known for its affordable housing that it built with Brad Pitt in New Orleans and a current project underway in Brazil.

His sentiment makes sense. Progress is the result of a challenge. This is how design is born. Meeting challenges and creating great solutions is how the businesses in our industry thrive—even the industry’s publications. It cannot be a coincidence that nearly everyone who stood at the podium (of the dozen+ category award winners named) took time to compliment Contract and its mission. Its constant survey of best practices and projects, and its drive to not just capture the best work but encourage the industry, shows that 50 years is more than a number.

Congrats to all of the winners, including Art Gensler who received a Legend Award, and to Contract.
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