Summary

The Michael Kalil Oral History Project consists of audio interviews with colleagues, collaborators, and friends of interior designer Michael Kalil (1943-1991). Jean Gardner, Karyn Issa Ginsberg, and Marty Speigel discuss Kalil's education, career, and ideas with project archivist Jennifer Larson. Kalil's work—incorporating diverse principles of architecture and philosophy—was considered by many to be revolutionary in the 1970s and 1980s.

Abstract Michael Kalil (1943-1991) was an interior architect, philosopher, educator and artist, known for his innovative work with new materials and for humanizing digital technologies. From 1981 to 1991, he was the principal of Kalil Designs/Kalil Studio, a firm that specialized in high-profile commercial, prototype and theoretical, and residential design commissions. Kalil also served as an adjunct faculty member at the Parsons School of Design. The collection includes Kalil's...

Overview

The Michael Rait student work consists of assignments that Rait completed as a student in the Parsons School of Design Environmental Design Department between 1975 and 1979. Projects in the portfolio include floor plans, elevations, perspectives, and renderings of office buildings, furniture, and restaurant, office, and residential interiors.

Summary

Ziva S. Gruber (née Margalith) is an interior designer and former student at Parsons School of Design. This collection contains Gruber's student notebooks from her classes at Parsons in the early 1960s and documentation of her professional design work. Also included is material related to a 1971 Parsons student project on the redesign of the Central Park Zoo, which Gruber worked with students on as a voluntary instructor.