Showdown at the Guggenheim: 2009 Best of Year Awards Announced
Sponsored by Edelman Leather, this year's voting garnered nearly 30,000 votes from October 5 through 11.
Laurel Petriello -- Interior Design, 12/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
The annual showdown for the year’s best products and projects came to a head last night at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for the 2009 Interior Design Best of Year awards. Fresh from the previous evening’s 25th anniversary Hall of Fame gala, 750 of the nation’s design community turned out for round two to find out the winners of these crowning industry achievements.
Sponsored by Edelman Leather, voting by the international design community took place October 5 through 11 at interiordesign.net. The magazine received over 1,200 entries and the online voting system garnered nearly 30,000 votes, narrowing down the category finalists. A subsequent judging by panel occurred the week following to determine the 2009 Best of Year winners. Judges included Lauren Rottet of Rottet Studio; Ali Tayar of Parallel Design; John Bricker of Gensler; Rick Focke of HOK; Mark Zeff of Zeff Design; Todd DeGarmo of Studios Architecture; and Interior Design editor in chief Cindy Allen, who selected winners from a total of 247 finalists in 64 categories.
Interior Design publisher Mark Strauss, Karim Rashid, Ivana Rashid, Annette Schiach of Maraham
Echo Mackenzie, guest, John McPhee, and John Edelman of Edelman Leather
The crowd in the Guggenheim rotunda
Kicking off the night with the Best of Year product winners, publisher Mark Strauss took to the podium with a warm, “welcome to Frank Lloyd Wright’s house,” as Cindy Allen joined him on stage to deliver the anticipated awards. Stealing the show was Bernhardt Design, whose Sonar, Atlantic, and Allée chairs earned them three awards in seating categories. An perhaps one of the most surprised winners was Aquaovo for their Ovopur water filtration system in the Kitchen: Appliance category. The astonished designers gave a hearty, raucous reaction garnering a grin from each member of the audience.
Interior Design editor in chief Cindy Allen; Cindy with Hagy Belzberg
Karen Gustafson and Mark Shannon of Crossville
Gretchen Anderson, Paolo Pantoni, Rayon Black, Tufan Eratici or Atelier
Following an intermission of mingling, cocktails, and a tour of the rotunda to see the museum’s Wassily Kandinsky exhibit, project awards were up next. Cindy Allen, in her always-gracious fashion, invited the audience to “show [their] love” to winners and merit winners as the show got underway. Taking home awards in both the Residence: City and Showroom categories, Hall of Famers Shelton, Mindel & Associates were the major players of the evening. Also securing a light bulb was tonychi and associates whose team members were still beaming from their namesake’s induction into the Hall of Fame just 24 hours earlier.
Chris Abbate, Royal Botania’s Thierry Herbert, Interior Design West Coast editor Edie Cohen, and Kristin Coleman of Novita PR
Peter Strugatz and Miranda Magagnini of IceStone and guest
President Joshua Levinson and Rich Johnson of Artistic Tile and Dennis Cahill
The event closed out a design-focused year for the Guggenheim, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009 with a nod earlier in the year to architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Proceeds from the Best of Year were donated to the Council for Interior Design Accreditation.
For a complete list of Product winners: 
For a complete list of Project winners:
Photos by Laurel Petriello.
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