Alexander Girard

Alexander Girard (May 24, 1907 – December 31, 1993), affectionately known as Sandro, was an architect, interior designer, furniture designer, industrial designer, and a textile designer.

He was born in New York City to an American mother from Boston and a French-Italian father.

He was raised in Florence, Italy and in 1917, he was sent as a boarder to Bedford Modern School in England leaving in 1924 to study architecture in London.

After also graduating from the Royal School of Architecture in Rome, Girard refined his skills in both Florence and New York.

In 1932, his studio was opened in New York and he moved it to Detroit in 1937.

T&O closed in shortly after opening, due to insufficient marketing and a public was not quite ready to add such colorful and exotic objects to the typical 1950s, palette of their homes.

Girard is widely known for his contributions in the field of American textile design, particularly through his work for Herman Miller (1952 to 1973), where he created fabrics for the designs of George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames.

In 1952, Alexander Girard was hired to head the fabric and textile division.

Girard worked with George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames to form a design team that has influenced the fundamentals of design throughout the United States and the rest of the world.

Girard initially established a fabric collection based on his architectural training.

His first fabric line consisted of plain upholsteries and geometric drapery prints—stripes, circles, and triangles.

He went on to create many more patterns and designs, largely inspired by folk art.

He also worked with a textile mill, Telares Uruapan, which he discovered in central Mexico, to create a line of handwoven 100% cotton fabrics.

Because of the excellent quality and array of colors available, he developed a range of colorful "mexidots"and "mexistripes" which he used in many of his projects including installation backing, ground for environmental enrichment panels and upholstery.

This Herman Miller showplace was a unique space filled with textiles and folk art pieces on Manhattan's East 53rd Street.

Textiles and Objects was an innovation demonstrating textiles as an integral part of interior displays for both designers and the individual consumer.

The showroom also featured folk art Girard collected from around the world.

In 1956, Just Lunning, president of Georg Jensen, commissioned Girard to design seven table settings for an exhibition on 5th Avenue in New York.

Each setting was created around a vignette outlining the personalities and situations of the company at the particular table.

He created place mats and dishes specific to the project.

Girard was commissioned to create a mural for the John Deere Company, in the entrance to their administration building designed by Eero Saarinen near Moline, Illinois.

His work also includes designing the La Fonda del Sol Restaurant in New York (1960), the Herman Miller Showplace: T&O (Textiles and Objects) (1961), Braniff International Airways (1965), and the Girard Foundation (1962), which houses his extensive folk art collection.

In 1960, Girard designed every aspect of the La Fonda del Sol restaurant located in Manhattan's Time-Life building in a Latin American and contemporary theme/style, including menus, matchbooks, tableware and the ceramic tiles on the floors and walls.

Girard created over eighty different sun motifs found throughout the restaurant.

As part of the commission, Charles and Ray Eames were brought in to design a fabric covered fiberglass chair and table, both with a new pedestal design.

The chairs were similar to the plastic Eames chairs with a modification to the top silhouette of the fiberglass bucket.

He and his wife, Susan Girard, amassed a remarkable collection of artifacts consisting of folk art, popular art, toys, and textiles from around the world, which is displayed through the Girard Foundation, founded 1962.

One of the artists Girard supported was Cochiti Pueblo potter Helen Cordero, the creator of Storyteller pottery figurines.

In May 1965, Girard began his design work for Braniff International Airways re-branding campaign called "The End of the Plain Plane".

This project gave Girard the opportunity to work with textiles, color, and graphics on a grand scale, redesigning everything from the sugar packets to the ticket counters to the color of the planes themselves.

He used colors like light and dark blue, beige, Ochre, orange, turquoise, and lemon yellow to make the planes recognizable from the ground.

Italian couturier fashion designer Emilio Pucci designed attendant uniforms.

Girard also designed a line of furniture for Braniff's ticket offices and customer lounges.

Girard was also commissioned by Brody to design the L'Etoile Restaurant (1966) in the Sherry Netherlands Hotel, New York, a French restaurant with austere decor featuring a range of silver and greys featuring glass engraved with the names of French luminaries and daisy shaped tables in the bar.

Girard also developed a furniture collection for Herman Miller in 1967 building on his designs for Braniff Airlines' lounge and office furniture which featured a low sight line and interior/exterior shell separate from the seat cushion to maximize varied upholstery.

Originals from this collection are rare and have become highly collectible, since they were quite expensive at the time and were in production only for one year.

This furniture was also available to the public by Herman Miller in 1967, but was available for one year only.

The Compound Restaurant (1967), in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is in a clean modern yet traditional New Mexican style with inlaid Mexicotton ceiling tiles and nichos featuring a mix of folk art and Girard's own designs.

In 1971, he developed 40 screen printed graphics on fabrics for Robert Propst's Action Office 2 System.

These Environmental Enrichment panels add a touch of warmth, color, and design to the office environment.