Second Edition 2009-2010
Emilio Ambasz
United States
Born in Resistencia (Argentina) in 1943, he lives and works in New York. After the degree in architecture at Princeton University, he taught at Princeton, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm (Germany). From 1969 to 1979 he was design curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Among the exhibitions he put on during his commission must be remembered Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (with the related catalogue, 1972), that contributed to promote in the United States the works of Italian architects and designers. Architect and designer himself, Emilio Ambasz realised numerous works such as the offices of the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company in New York (1986); the offices of the Banque Bruxelles Lambert in Milan (1981), Lausanne (1983) and New York (1984); the Lucille Halsell Conservatory in San Antonio, Texas (1987); the Casa de Retiro Espiritual near Seville (MoMA recently devoted an exhibition to it). As a designer his creation is wide and manifold: from diesel engines (among which the models Cummins N14 Liter Engine, 1982, awarded the ID’s Designer Choice and Annual Design Review, and Cummins Signature 600, 1996-1997, awarded the Bronze Medal IDSA/IDEA) to furniture (among which the series Qualis Office Furniture for Tecno, awarded the “Compasso d’Oro” 1991) to lighting and consumer products.