In Passing

As we prepare to stick a fork in 2009, and ring in what we hope will be a better year in 2010, we can pause to remember those in our field whose work enriched our lives, and whose lives ended this year. Designers, architects, photographers, famous and lesser-known—all contributed to the visual environment that surrounds and sustains us. In no particular order, the list includes:

Otto Heino, 94, half of the California pottery team of Vivika and Otto; Ezra Gordon, 88, humanistic Chicago architect and WWII veteran; Lawrence Halprin, 93, noted Bay area landscape architect; James Rossant, 81, architect and urban planner; J. Max Bond, 73, New York architect and civil engineer; Sam Maloof, 93, famed California artisan; Joan Goody, 73, Boston architect and cultural leader; Charles Gwathmey, 71, leading architect and principal in Gwathmey Siegel; David Medd, 91, British school architect; Sverre Fehn, 85, acclaimed Norwegian architect…

…Arthur Erickson, 84, dean of Canadian architects; Julius Schulman, 98, architectural photographer whose work added warmth , comfort, and inhabitants to modernist architecture; Oliver Lundquist, 92, architect and industrial designer, who designed buildings with Eero Saarinen, worked on the U.N. logo and designed the Q-tip box; Hans Beck, 79, who designed the Playmobil figure, of which 2.2 billion have sold since 1975; and Irving Penn, 92, the great fashion photographer.

This list is woefully incomplete. We have lost many this year who contributed in large or small ways to the design community, and merit our gratitude and remembrance.