Curriculum trends Professional practice Design solutions Historical styles 20th century pioneers Publications and lectures
PROJECT IDEAS:
Emily Malino was an interior designer, an outgoing woman working in a man's world in the mid-to-late 20th century. Shortly after she graduated from Vassar College in the late 1950s, she founded her own firm, Emily Malino Associates, in NYC. At the same time, she was a U.S. Congressman's wife and mother of four, commuting for much of her life between New York and Washington D.C. Over the course of her prolific career she designed urban housing, hospital wards and facilities, residential interiors, and commercial interiors. Always with a passion for working on a tight budget and coming up with simple solutions to everyday problems, for over 25 years she wrote a weekly column, "Design for People," that was nationally syndicated in newspapers such as the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. With this platform she brought clever, modern design to every home across America.
Over her long career she published a book called "Super Living Rooms" (1976), consulted for Sears and Monsanto, was on Nixon's National Design Counsel (and traveled to Moscow on behalf of the federal government to help design an "American" art collection there), was Vice-President at Perkins and Will for over a decade, lectured to groups and at conferences across the United States, she even had her own television show for awhile, among many other achievements. She was a dynamic, democratic, socially conscious voice for cost-effective innovation in the design industry, and a designer who deserves to be better recognized for all she accomplished.
Malino's extensive archives arrived at NYSID in summer of 2019, and are still being processed and made available for research. Please contact the archivist for more information. A use case scenario for the Malino papers can be found here (password protected).
Tom Lee was an interior, exhibition, window display, costume, and set designer in New York City from the 1930s through the early 1970s. He began his career while still a student, designing costumes for burlesque shows, movie posters for MGM Studios, and book jackets for the Modern Library. In 1936 he was hired by Bonwit Teller as Display Director. During his tenure, Lee established himself as a leader in the field, and at his suggestion Salvador Dali was commissioned to complete a series of window displays.
Lee’s talents and experience continued to land him a variety of contracts. He designed sets and costumes on Broadway and off, and in the mid-1940s worked at W. L. Steensgaard & Associates (a Chicago-based firm that specialized in display and merchandise presentation) as Vice President and Director of East Coast activities. In 1947 that Tom Lee established his firm, Tom Lee, Ltd., which focused on display, industrial, and hospitality design and was contracted to design exhibits, trade shows, showrooms, packaging and product design, and the design of interiors.
Lee completed a variety of freelance design projects throughout his career. Tom Lee’s son (Todd Lee) recalls seeing his father “sitting at the kitchen table with a small carving knife and a supply of Ivory soap blocks next to him. The floor was littered with shavings. He was on assignment from Lever Brothers to come up with a better bar of soap. He told me it had to ‘fit the curves of your body, not be so easy to drop, and provide a sensually delightful experience.' The result was the prototype for Dove, the first oblong concave/convex soap, which revolutionized the U.S. soap industry.” Lee’s drawings for his proposed new Dove bar can be found in the collection.
His design for the interiors of the Williamsburg Motor House in Colonial Williamsburg, VA (1956) marked his foray into hospitality design. The project consisted of a group of new buildings in Colonial Williamsburg, a motel with 208 rooms, a cafeteria serving 400 people, and a reception center. It marked the first use of contemporary design and materials in the historic city. Shortly afterwards, Lee was hired as design consultant for Hilton Hotels, and he continued to design hotel interiors across the US and internationally throughout the 1950s and 1960s. .
The NYSID Archives holds the records of both Tom Lee and his equally accomplished wife, Sarah Tomerlin Lee (see the hospitality section of this guide for more information). This collection documents both the work they did separately and together, and the material is as varied and fascinating as its subjects.
The NYSID Institutional Archives collection documents the history of the college. Materials in the collection include: publications such as newsletters, course catalogs, and special bulletins; promotional materials such as posters, printed advertisements and brochures; selected examples of student, faculty work, and course-related materials reflecting the evolution of interior design pedagogy at NYSID; materials related to milestones in the life of the College including commencements, building renovations, special events and exhibitions; printed matter such as news clippings and ephemera pertaining to faculty, staff, alumni, and special events; and photographs of building locations, faculty, staff, and special events. The collection also includes materials created by and related to Sherrill Whiton, founder of the school, including lectures, notes, correspondence, as well as source images, drafts, and planning documents related to the Whiton's seminal textbook on interior design, Elements of Interior Design and Decoration, first published in 1937. Now in its sixth edition, Interior Design and Decoration is edited by Stanley Abercrombie.
The archives also has drafts and source material for Ethel Rompilla’s "Color for Interiors" book, and drafts and planning documents from Albert Hadley’s "Albert Hadley: drawings and the design process".
The collection also contains materials related to the administration operations of the College, both previous and ongoing, including: correspondence, subject files, minutes, and memoranda from the primary administrative offices of NYSID.
