Terence Conran: My Life in Design

Description

In MY LIFE IN DESIGN, Terence Conran tells the story of the Conran brand from the founding of the Conran Design Studio sixty years ago to the creation of the Design Museum, now moving to a dazzling new space on High Street Kensington in November this year. Extensively illustrated chapters consider the many areas where Terence and his design team have made a lasting impact on the way we live our lives, including the founding of Habitat, which introduced good, affordable homeware to the high street, his restaurants, which brought Britain out of the culinary dark ages to discover the joys of eating out and his talent for rescuing and regenerating abandoned buildings and bringing them back into exciting new use. MY LIFE IN DESIGN is illustrated with more than 400 images - many from private collections that have not been published before. The book is introduced by internationally renowned designer, Thomas Heatherwick, who identifies his mentor Terence Conran as 'a modernist who, together with a tiny handful of others, gave us a new vision of Britain and ourselves.' Now in his eighties and still designing beautiful homeware and opening buzzy, welcoming restaurants, Terence reveals the secrets and stories of this transformation of British design. Gloriously lively, opinionated and visually stimulating, this is the only book to tell the story of Terence Conran's remarkable career in his own words. TERENCE CONRAN: MY LIFE IN DESIGN is published in time for the opening of the Design Museum at its new home in a world-class building. It will appeal to designers, students and all those who have grown up with the work of the multi-talented Sir Terence Conran.

Sir Terence Conran was one of the world's best-known designers, retailers and restaurateurs. Born in 1931 he founded the Conran Design Studio in 1956, and in 1964 opened the first of the Habitat chain of home furnishing stores that revolutionized design on the British high street in the '60s and '70s and continued to expand its influence around the globe. Later Terence established The Conran Shop and opened stores in London, Paris, Germany, New York, across Japan as well as his largest store ever in Seoul, South Korea. In the 1990s Terence founded Conran Restaurants, opening iconic restaurants, hotels and bars around the world including Quaglino's, Bluebird, Mezzo, Guastavino's and Le Pont de la Tour. His other restaurant ventures included the iconic Bibendum in Chelsea and The Boundary in Shoreditch. In 1989 he founded the Design Museum in London, the world's first museum dedicated to design, which moved to larger premises in the former Commonwealth Building in Kensington, in 2016. Terence wrote more than 50 informative books that reflect his philosophy - that good design improves the quality of people's lives. Terence was knighted for his services to design in 1983, and in 2018 he was made a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty The Queen, one of the highest distinctions available in the United Kingdom.

Britain's taste-maker in chief - The Daily Telegraph