Oops!

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 10/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Major oops. A New York equities firm, Liquidnet, is featured in this issue. . . an online trader to boot. What was I thinking? Maybe that this color-infused office by Studios Architecture is exactly the high-energy jolt we could all use at times like this. And where do I get the giant chutzpah to print page after page of strong showings from the Interior Design Giants in hospitality? Well, as the End of the World plays, live, on every financial cable channel in addition to WE and Hallmark, I am told, the numbers from 2007-2008 show that these 75 megafirms have been chugging along. (I'd rather say "striding forward," but I'm compelled to adopt a new moderation in prose, lest I get castigated.) I can't walk away from our numbers, never mind how last-year they may be. In them I find solidity and hope for our future—just as commentators assure us that there will be no such thing. Our leading firms have become exceedingly nimble and diversified. Narrow business models have been banished a decade ago. Beating the tech bust a decade ago taught that lesson exceedingly well.

Of course, there will be a contraction. Belts will be tightened. And I would never want to appear insensitive to problems design, architecture, and, yes, publishing will inevitably face in the months to come. Despite the miserable mess that reckless speculation has thrust us all into for now, important issues and commitments await us. The need for greening our society is dire, and our rotten infrastructure is overdue for an extreme overhaul. It seems clear to me that the future, even the immediate future, will be a builder's one. That's where you come in. —Cindy