Tupperware In 1942, Earl Silas Tupper produced the first flexible plastic container, a product that would become the foundation of a billion dollar global enterprise. Few companies have both saturated the marketplace and lined the shelves of major museums worldwide. Tupperware’s ethos is firmly rooted in Tupper’s quest to create products that married traditional American...

Peter Eisenman Peter Eisenman, architecture’s chief intellectual since the 1960s, has applied contemporary philosophy to his own field and transformed his architecture into an art form that probes human experience. Since founding the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in 1967, Eisenman has sought to infuse architecture with leading ideas from other fields, from literary...

John Maeda Merging art and computer science, John Maeda investigates the physical manifestations of digital data. Whether designing innovative digital calendars and game patterns or creating digital echoes of real world behaviors, Maeda exerts extraordinary control over his design process by creating his own computer code instead of simply manipulating programs off the shelf. More...

Julie Bargmann Of D.I.R.T. studio Julie Bargmann teaches community leaders to see their ravaged industrial sites in new ways—to claim, accept, and even celebrate their history, to boldly tackle their problems, and to have faith in their future. Trained as a sculptor and landscape architect, Bargmann collaborates with scientists, ecologists, architects, artists, engineers, and historians...

David Kelley & IDEO David Kelley may be the prototype for the twenty-first-century Renaissance man. With IDEO, the international design and engineering consultancy he founded in 1991, Kelley has cultivated a multidisciplinary hothouse, just at the moment when design demands new hybrids of expertise. Sought after by Fortune 500 companies around the world, IDEO generates...

Dan Kiley In a professional career spanning more than 60 years, Dan Kiley has been acclaimed as the “dean” of American landscape architecture. He has worked with the great 20th-century architects (including Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Frank Gehry) on some of this country’s most important commissions, combining a refinement of eye and hand with...

Geoffrey Beene Universally recognized for his unparalleled craftsmanship and excellence in clothing design, Geoffrey Beene has maintained his strong, singular vision—unmoved by the whims of trends—throughout his 50 years in American fashion. Having originally studied medicine, he has a unique perspective on the human body and, throughout his career, has returned again and again to...

André Balazs André Balazs has created some of the most innovative and widely imitated hotels in the world. Focused on the narrative of the individual experience, Balazs works closely with architects and designers to create a unique look and feel for each hotel. His hotels range widely from luxury boutique hotels like The Mercer, in...

Whirlpool Corporation Whirlpool Corporation uses design as a strategic tool to produce high-quality, innovative appliances that meet the needs of a broad range of American households. Whirlpool strives to achieve both business value and consumer solutions through design and consistently reinvents mass-market appliances. The recent development and introduction of a new youth brand, Pla (pronounced...