Press Release

Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Jennifer Nyholm Tel: +815/777-4444 [email protected] The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design THE AMERICAN DESIGNER, ICON-MAKER KARIM RASHID WINS 2020 AMERICAN PRIZE FOR DESIGN Rashid’s Philosophy for the Democratization of Quality in Design and His Life-Time Achievements Earn Him the Highest Award for Design in the United States NEW YORK, NEW YORK (May 2, 2020) - In conjunction with GOOD DESIGN® 2020, The Chicago Athenaeum has announced that the visionary and prolific American designer, Karim Rashid has been selected as this year’s Laureate of the prestigious American Prize for Design®. Karim Rashid is one of the biggest names in the contemporary design market. He describes himself as “a design pervert, cultural shaper, poet of plastic, digipop rockstar.” A citizen of the world, Rashid was born in Egypt in 1960, educated in Canada, and now based in New York. The designer is famous for futuristic pop appeal that he has instilled into his design creations. He belongs to a generation of professionals who have made the bridge between the old notion of design (something hitherto associated with the idea of exclusive and expensive furniture) and its meaning today—a tool for creating popular products that differentiate themselves from competitors by the elegance and advantages of use. He claims that there is a niche of products on market that go unnoticed and require a minimum grace and lightness. So, he began to stand out also in creations of garbage bins and 3Mposted notes, for example. Rashid is one of the most unique voices in design today. With more than 4,000 designs in production, nearly 300 awards to his name, and client work in over 40 countries, Karim’s ability to transcend typology continues to make him a force among designers of his generation. —MORE— 28 Butlers Court, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland TEL/FAX: +353/ (0) 1 6708781 74 Mitropoleos Str., GR-105 63 Athens, Greece TEL: +30/210 342 8511 FAX: +30/210 342 8512 International Sculpture Park, Municipal Center at Schaumburg Road, Schaumburg, Illinois 60193 USA www.chi-athenaeum.org U.S Administrative Offices: Historic Fulton Brewery, 601 South Prospect Street, Galena, Illinois 61036 USA TEL: +1/815-777-4444 FAX: +1/815-777-2471 KARIM RASHID WINS 2020 AMERICAN PRIZE FOR DESIGN Add One At age 60, Rashid has designed on his own 111 tabletop projects, 59 graphic designs, 46 works of fashion, 306 furniture projects, 34 buildings, 71 lighting designs, 27 hotels, 232 household products, 76 packaging projects, 19 residential designs, 35 architectural materials projects., 102 interiors, and 93 exhibitions. More than 3,000 objects in total. And that list keeps growing. Or rather, exploding. His portfolio of works reads like a book of Guinness World Records. “What stands out,” states Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, President of The Chicago Athenaeum, “is that the man is driven. Scratch that. Hyper-driven. At any given point in time he’s got a dizzying array of projects going all over the globe. Just following his twitter feed is exhausting. The man is PRO-LIF-IC.” “I don’t even know how to stretch the powers of punctuation to emphasize that enough.” “Entering the mad design world of Karim Rashid is like being trapped inside a gigantic, rotating kaleidoscope, where the turning and twisting of bits of colored materials between two flat plates against two plane mirrors produce an endless variety of crazed patterns and dizzying possibilities.” “Design is my lifelong hobby” states Rashid. “Design is something that can be so emotional, so experiential, so romantic, so poetic, and so human and yet constantly moves us forward. We must evolve, we must innovate, and we must change. I want to change the physical world.” “Rashid stretches the entire envelope of object and its physical design, crashing through the boundaries like an out-of-control spacecraft that lands into a new, unexplored world of both form and function,” states Narkiewicz-Laine. “There is no living designer today that bends design with such originality, that reshapes and reinvents the object in its own unique and impressive presence, that recreates the figure, the form, and the aesthetic into something so entirely tantalizing, so fresh, and so completely unprecedented, novel, and inventive.” “Rashid actually takes the envelope and shreds it.” “He designs and shapes the future, not working off existing trends or styles, but reinvents anything and everything." —MORE— KARIM RASHID WINS 2020 AMERICAN PRIZE FOR DESIGN Add Two “Turning it all on its head, that Miesian axiom of less will never be entirely more.” “Moreover, with a portfolio that runs the gamut from high-end, high-concept interiors, to mass-market utilitarian objects, and distribution in every corner of the globe and every slot in the market place, his impact is undeniable,” maintains Narkiewicz-Laine. “This professional and public acknowledgement of Rashid’s finger print on design today is long overdue.” Each year, The American Prize for Design is awarded jointly by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies to designers who have made a commitment to forward the principles of design excellence within the context of our contemporary society and who elevated design to a more a profound humanist statement about how our modern contemporary society can advance and progress as a result. Given in conjunction with the Museum’s historic GOOD DESIGN Awards, which were founded in Chicago in 1950, this Prize honors a specific design practitioner with the highest pubic accolade for producing design that promotes design excellence, innovation, and lasting design. Candidates for the Prize are sent to The Chicago Athenaeum by design practitioners, press, and educators from around the world and the Museum’s International Advisory Committee, composed of such notable world designers as Richard Meier, Adrian Smith, John Marx, James von Klemperer, Santiago Calatrava, Serqei Tchoban, Graft Architects, and the late Alessandro Mendini. The Committee’s decisions are based on core criteria: design excellence, innovation, and contributions to humanity and to the public good. The American Prize for Design is the highest and most prestigious design award in the United States. Previous Laureates include Gorden Wagener, Chief Designer and Executive Vice President at Daimler AG., and British architect/designer Sir Norman Foster, and Italian Ferrari Designer, Flavio Manzoni. Karim Rashid received a Bachelor of Industrial Design in 1982 from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He holds honorary doctorates from the Ontario college of Art & Design and Corcoran College of Art & Design. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Carlton University, Pratt Institute, OCAD in Toronto, British Institute of Interior Design, and Corcoran College of Art & Design. —MORE— KARIM RASHID WINS 2020 AMERICAN PRIZE FOR DESIGN Add Three After his formal education, he pursued further study in Italy with Ettore Sottsass and Rodolfo Benetto among others. Alessandro Mendini was his great mentor, and his work demonstrates that he is one of Mendini’s most adherent devotees. As a cultural shaper, Karim is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences globally, aspiring to change the world by making design a public subject. He is also regularly featured in print and digital platforms by media companies like CNN, Vogue, and Elle, and countless more. He disseminates the importance of design in everyday life. Rashid has been featured in magazine and books including Time, Financial Times, New York Times, Esquire, Elle, GQ and countless more. ‘ Rashid’s most recent monograph, “XX” (Design Media Publishing, 2015), features 400 pages of work selected from the last 20 years. Other monographs include “From The Beginning,” an oral history of Rashid’s life and inspiration (Forma, 2014); “Sketch,” featuring 300 hand drawings (Frame Publishing, 2011); “KarimSpace,” featuring 36 of his interior designs (Rizzoli, 2009); “Design Your Self,” Rashid’s guide to living (Harper Collins, 2006); “Digipop,” a digital exploration of computer graphics (Taschen, 2005); “Compact Design Portfolio” (Chronicle Books 2004); and classic titles “Evolution” (Universe, 2004) and “I Want to Change the World” (Rizzoli, 2001). Rashid got his start not in a world of colorful plastic blobs, but in the realm of engineering. After learning that the architecture program was full at Carleton University, he opted for a degree in industrial design and went on to create x-ray equipment for KAN Industrial Designers, mailboxes for the Canadian postal service, and power tools for Black & Decker. Rashid moved over to Nike, and some other, sexier places—creating the high-profile reputation he has today. From there, he jettisoned into super star status on his own. Karim Rashid explains: “At the beginning of my career, I thought the greatest accolade was to be in a permanent collection at a museum. I’ve come to understand that much bigger than that is to walk into someone’s home and see products that I’ve designed. Everyone, collectively, wants Good Design.” Although he may not have intended it, his works have landed in 20 permanent collections in various art institutions worldwide, including Brooklyn Museum of Art, MoMA, The Chicago Athenaeum, and The Center Pompidou. “Over a decade,” continues Narkiewicz-Laine, “Rashid has won a staggering number of Good Design —MORE— KARIM RASHID WINS 2020 AMERICAN PRIZE FOR DESIGN Add Four Awards, the most awards by one design practitioner, a number that totals only with Jonathan Ive of Apple Computer.” Most of Rashid’s Good Design narrative extends to his belief in a true Democratic Design for the masses. “Design is about shaping new movements,” adds Rashid, “finding new directions, new solutions, and new aesthetics, so design eventually shapes or results in trends.

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