Robin Day  

Today's Guardian Newspaper (U.K.) carries an interesting obituary by Fiona MacCarthy, (wife of David Mellor) on the death of Rosamind Julius and her discovery of Robin Day whilst on a trip to New York at the Low Cost Furniture Exhibition at MoMa in 1948. Rosamind directed the furniture company Hille set up by her father Salamon Hille, a Russian refugee from the Jewish pogroms in 1900. Having witnessed the collaboration between Herman Miller and Charles and Ray Eames, Rosamind was inspired and championed Robin and Lucienne Day's designs from the 1950's onwards. Their London headquarters was designed by Peter Moro, one of the architects of the Royal Festival Hall, a building that Hille supplied with Day furniture and featured in a recent posting here. I was fortunate to meet Peter Moro and invited to his house which he designed for himself in Blackheath, London in 1957. I took the opportunity then to sit in of the Robin Day chairs for the Royal Festival Hall that he still owned. He was very kind to pass onto me his copy of A Modern House Revisited, The Journa of the Twentieth Century Society No. 2, 1996. The obituary makes interesting reading for anyone interested in the influence of early 20th century emigre architects to Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jul/01/rosamind-julius-obituary-modern-design