ALEXANDER “SANDRO” GIRARD (1907-1992), textile designer, architect, collector, graphic and exhibition designer, is best known as one third of the Herman Miller company’s legendary postwar triumvirate (along with George Nelson & Charles Eames). At Herman Miller, as head of the textile division, Girard was a prolific creator, exacting and meticulous - not only designing hundreds of fabrics for the company, but venturing into the realm of furniture designing itself, launching Herman Miller first and last retail store (the pioneering Textiles & Objects Shop). Apart from Herman Miller, Girard found time to mastermind three celebrated restaurants, two in New York and one in Santa Fe. He collaborated on countless projects with the Eames Office in Los Angeles, and, perhaps most notably, oversaw the complete design and branding of Braniff Airlines, from the planes themselves all the way down to the baggage labels.

Girard is credited with infusing modern, intellectual design with humanism and exuberance, mostly through his bold, uninhibited use of color and geometric patterns (which predated the op-art of the sixties by at least ten years). Indeed, even in his total design environments, Girard was less interested in the intellectual design than in creating a “feeling” within a space, an ambiance. If he is lesser known than his peers Nelson and Eames, it is only for all his talents, he was not a self-promoter. Soft spoken and serious, yet firm and decisive, Girard was known by all as an extremely principled person.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Girard lived most of his life, Girard is a local hero, known less for his success at Herman Miller than for his 1978 gift of 106,000 objects to the Museum of International Folk Art. The Girard Collection, exhibited in an enormous wing specially designed by Girard himself, quintupled the museum’s collection and is now considered to be the finest collection of folk art in the world.

Girard possessed a curator’s eye, and in his passion for diverse cultural traditions, he was able to synthesize his passion for diverse cultural traditions, he was able to synthesize his passion for these naïve and often “exotic expressions” into his work for Herman Miller, forever changing the course of modern design. – Laura Forde, 2002 (With permission from Laura Forde and Petit Glam Publishing)

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