NEW YORK — Despite their drastically different mediums, this year’s recipients of Pratt’s Legends awards agreed fine design is to be shared.
Hundreds showed up at Tuesday night’s Gotham Hall dinner celebrating the work of designer Karim Rashid, artists Dale Chihuly and Michele Oka Doner, philanthropist Barbara Tober and corporate patron Joseph Pacifico. As they see it, a little sprucing up can go a long way.
In a video highlighting Rashid’s creations — including everything from an Umbro garbage can to the Semiramis Hotel — the designer said, “Ninety percent of the world out there needs an overhaul.” Rashid, who taught at Pratt for years, said his first lecture there provided the inspiration for the Oh chair he designed. After noticing how students were sitting in their chairs, he came up with the idea for a more comfortable polypropylene seat with matte-finish powder-coated steel legs and nylon feet.
Rashid’s insight into the design world was limited to the video presentation. Unable to attend the event, his wife and fellow artist, Megan Lang, accepted the award on his behalf.
In the video, he also talked about how multifunctional designs, such as a stool that doubles as a magazine rack, have a place in the modern world. His hankering for phosphorous colors is very much inspired by the digital age, he said: “Color gives me energy and makes me feel alive.”
He continued: “I used to think it was great to see an object in a museum. Now I think people’s homes are the new museums.”
Chihuly also is broadening the definition of museums. In June, he will stage a massive exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. More than 10,000 pieces of his work will be exhibited in and around the grounds and the greenhouse.
Like Rashid, Chihuly has a kaleidoscopic sense of color, even though a 1976 car accident left him blind in one eye. “I never met a color I didn’t like,” he said.
Nicole Miller, a friend from their undergraduate days at Rhode Island School of Design, was in the crowd to cheer Chihuly on. (He is credited with setting up the school’s glass program.) Hosted by actor Richard Thomas and chaired by Juliana Curran Terian and Marc Rosen, the event raised $500,000 for Pratt’s scholarship fund.