Benjamin Baldwin

Benjamin Baldwin: An Autobiography in Design provides a comprehensive survey of the work of the man whom architect Louis Kahn called "the dean of American interior designers." Trained as an architect at Princeton, Baldwin also studied with Hans Hofmann and with Eliel Saarinen at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. After a brief partnership with architect Harry Weese in Chicago, he worked in the New York office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, before launching an independent practice. His career spanned a period of over fifty years, from 1940 to 1991. In 1985 he was designated a charter member of Interior Design magazine's Hall of Fame. . Extensively illustrated, the text explores the early influences on Baldwin's development and illustrates his design principles by focusing first on the houses and apartments he designed for himself and then on his work for clients, both residential and non-residential. A final chapter is devoted to the aspect of his work that he felt represented the ultimate form of creativity - garden design.