The Vitra Design Museum organised retrospective George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher, opens at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery on 8 November 2012, marking the arrival of the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to George Nelson to the US East Coast.

One of the most influential figures in American post-war design, George Nelson (1928–1986) is best known today as the creator of icons of modern design as the Marshmallow Sofa, Ball Clock, and Bubble Lamps. Nelson was also a gifted and indefatigable visionary who also excelled as an architect, urban planner, exhibition designer, corporate image-maker, and author. The exhibition presents more than 120 examples of his home- and office furnishings, as well as fifty-plus drawings, photographs, architectural models, films, and other materials that document the full range of his extraordinary achievement.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Yale School of Architecture will present a free symposium on 9 and 10 November, entitled George Nelson: Designs for Living, American Mid-Century Design and Its Legacy Today. The symposium will place particular emphasis on the nature and lasting influence of Nelson's highly collaborative approach in many of his design projects, shedding light on how the challenges and opportunities that framed and inspired Nelson's own work are in many ways matched by the multidisciplinary paradigm shifts that designers face today.

A stellar range of speakers — among which writer and critic Ralph Caplan, MoMA curator Juliet Kinchin, design critic Alice Rawsthorn, and architecture historian Beatriz Colomina — will illuminate several facets of Nelson's work and their resonance today.

9 and 10 November 2012
George Nelson: Designs for Living, American Mid-Century Design and Its Legacy Today
Yale School of Architecture
New Haven, Connecticut
Free entrance

Through 26 January 2013
George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher
Yale School of Architecture Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut