Mid2Mod: Massimo and Lella Vignelli

Massimo (1931- ) and Lella (1934- ) Vignelli both studied architecture in their native Italy. He came to the United States in 1957 on fellowships from Towle Silversmiths in Massachusetts and the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 1958 she received a fellowship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and joined Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in Chicago as a designer in 1959.

In 1960 they returned to Italy to form the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. In 1965, he became the co-founder and design director of Unimark International Corporation, and she was the head of the interiors department in Milan and New York. They established the office of Vignelli Associates in 1971 and Vignelli Designs in 1978.

Their work includes corporate branding, publication design, architectural graphics, furniture and product design and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.

From vignelli.com