DESIGN RESEARCH WILL OPEN OCTOBER 15TH
Design Research
[Design Research]: DESIGN RESEARCH WILL OPEN OCTOBER 15TH [card title]. Philadelphia: Design Research, [1975]. Oversized announcement placard with 24 die-cut window hinges. Left side somewhat bent and worn, but a good example of this elaborate Store Opening Announcment.
14.5 x 9.5 card announcing the opening of the Design Research in Rittenhouse Square on October 15, 1975. The front of the card is a faux diazzoprint of the Rittenhouse building with 24 die-cut window and door hinges that open to reveal the coming onslaught of colorful merchandise to Philadelphia. An elaborate and beautiful piece of Design ephemera that clearly foreshadows Design Research declared bankruptcy within three years.
This card reminds me of the sleeve for Led Zeppelin’s Physical Grafitti, released eight months before, in February 1975. The elaborate die-cutting and matching of the record sleeves to the jacket delayed the release of the two-record set by a couple of months. It is not hard to imagine similar grief suffered by the Design Research marketing team bringing this announcement to life.
Founded in 1953 by the architect Ben Thompson, Design Research — or D/R, after its striking logo — became known as America’s first “lifestyle store,” introducing to the United States market now-prominent modern European design brands like Iittala, Artek and Marimekko. Fans included Julia Child, who frequently stopped by the striking concrete and glass flagship store that Thompson designed in Cambridge, Mass.; Ray Eames, who shopped at the Beverly Hills, Calif., location; and Jackie Kennedy, who purchased her first Marimekko dress (she’s said to have owned at least eight) at D/R’s Hyannis, Mass. store. The company closed in the late 1970s but has had widespread influence on 20th-century retail design, counting among its disciples Crate and Barrel’s founder, Gordon Segal; the designer and retailer Jonathan Adler; and Moss’s co-owner Franklin Getchell.
“Without question, D/R was the most influential force in twentieth-century America in creating an awareness and appreciation for modern design in the consumer world. ”— Rob Forbes, founder Design Within Reach
Design Research carried an eclectic selection of products, from furniture to clothing, from toys to pots and pans, at a wide range of prices, introducing the idea of a lifestyle store. It carried furnishings by such designers as Marcel Breuer, Hans Wegner, Alvar Aalto, and Joe Colombo.
Design Research was the exclusive U.S. representative for the Finnish clothing and textiles of Marimekko from 1959 to 1976. Jacqueline Kennedy was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1960 in a Marimekko sundress purchased at D/R.
The original Harvard Square Design Research store was in a 19th-century wood frame mansard house on Brattle Street, Cambridge. D/R later added stores in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Lexington Avenue (1961) and East 57th Street (1964) in New York City, and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco (1965).
In 1969, Thompson moved the Cambridge store to a revolutionary new 24,000-square-foot (2,200 m2) store designed by his firm, Benjamin Thompson and Associates, at 48 Brattle Street. The building consists of flat concrete slabs supported by interior columns and enclosed by frameless tempered glass walls. It immediately received warm reviews: "points the way to a method of glass building that could create a warmer city, adding color and light and optimism to the life of the streets.”
“This marvelous building... is conceived as a five-story glass showcase, faceted like the surface of a diamond. The facade is so transparent that the merchandise on display indoors becomes part of the architecture. ” — Robert Campbell, architecture critic, Boston Globe
The first D/R stores were all located in urban areas, but under new management starting in 1969, D/R opened stores in suburban shopping malls, which Thompson disapproved of: South Shore Plaza in Braintree, Massachusetts (1972), South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa (1972), and The Mall at Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts (1974). It also opened stores at the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco (1973), and in downtown Philadelphia in Rittenhouse Square (1975).
“The genius of Ben Thompson was that he wasn't a retailer, so he didn't approach retailing in a conventional way at all.... Eventually we took the whole idea and translated it into a reproducible formula. ”— Lon Habkirk, Crate & Barrel