George Nelson

According to George Nelson (as reported in review), Nelson described his first furniture design assignment as undertaken with no prior furniture design experience.³ An illustrated essay by Nelson addressed the nature and history of the urban center, and he authored the book Problems of Design.⁴ An essay-journal source describes Nelson as an influential writer, designer, and teacher, while Italian design scholarship characterizes him as an intellectual theorist and critical voice in mid-century American design.^2,4

The Italian monograph author also describes Nelson as promoting a design culture through critical and theoretical writing throughout his career.² According to a paper in a 1978 paper, Nelson was responsible for the L-shaped desk and wall clocks without numerals, a point on which the panel's sources or readings disagree.⁴

Architectural Digest dates Nelson's interest in spherical lighting to 1947 and recounts that an imported lamp he saw cost $125, more than he could afford.⁵ In an account quoted by the magazine, Nelson said that a plastic-covered lamp was made by the following night, glowed when lit, and cost less than the imported example.⁵ Architectural Digest presents the Bubble lamp as a design still used in contemporary interiors; Nell Diamond described its light as “honeyed” and “ultraflattering.”⁵

An exhibition of Nelson's work was held at the Vitra Design Museum from September 2008 to May 2009 and at Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza in A Coruña from 15 June to 29 November 2009.³ In 2008, John Harwood published an article examining Nelson's thinking about an “end of architecture.”⁶