New Exhibit Celebrates Retro Designs

Empty stores indicate tough economic times, and Harvard Square has seen its share of blank windows and dark buildings. But, at least for a few more months, the most conspicuous storefront in the Square will light up Brattle St. with bold frocks, patterned cushions, quirky furniture, and floor-to-ceiling tapestries. The exhibit, under the direction of architect Jane F. Thompson, celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the glass and concrete edifice at 48 Brattle Street. Thompson’s late husband Benjamin C. Thompson designed the iconic building in 1969 as headquarters for Design Research, a home furnishings and design company the couple founded together in 1953.

Thompson’s husband, formerly chair of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, also designed Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

After Design Research—popularly known as D/R—went bankrupt in 1978, Crate and Barrel occupied the space until last January.

The building returns to its roots to

showcase the designs D/R popularized after the company introduced products from avant-garde European designers such as Marimekko and Iittala to the United States

After the original D/R store opened at the current site of Harvard’s Gutman Library, the company catapulted into prominence as a forerunner of the fashion and interior design scene. Julia Child shopped at the Brattle Street D/R, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was pictured on the cover of a December 1960 Sports Illustrated wearing a pink Marimekko dress purchased from another D/R branch.

Harvard professor emeritus William J. Poorvu bought the building in 1978 and leased it to Crate and Barrel for 30 years.

Thompson says Crate and Barrel’s founder was a “disciple” of D/R, and the chain was previously a customer.

When the lease ended on January 25 of this year, Crate and Barrel closed its Brattle Street location permanently, and tourists and Cantabrigians alike were faced with a potentially permanent five-story concrete eyesore.

Thompson says the unconventional layout of the D/R headquarters and Crate and Barrel’s departure at a time when economic fears were at their peak combined to stall the search for a tenant.

When Thompson, who now heads the Boston-based architectural firm Thompson Design Group, was drawing up a proposal for another D/R exhibition that would not open for two years, she had an idea for the Brattle property. She would bring back the designs D/R introduced to Cambridge in the ’50s, ’60s, and early ’70s.

Enlisting fellow Marimekko collectors, Thompson assembled 300 Marimekko print dresses to temporarily fill the building.

“A few of us felt terrible about the empty space, which was not just bad for the owner, but also bad for Harvard Square and the other merchants,” she says. “We thought 300 dresses ought to be enough to fill the windows; at that time we weren’t ambitious enough to

start moving in furniture.”

The tentativeness with which Thompson approached the redecoration of the five-story space over the summer melted away as designers who worked for D/R during its heyday came forward with pieces ranging from peacock feather shaped wooden chairs to one-of-a-kind bolts of Marimekko fabric.

“We just sat around and said, ‘what shall we do, what do we have available,’ then began moving all our furniture, our pieces, into the building,” Thompson says. The effort to collect pieces for a possible long-term D/R retrospective exhibit snowballed. Thompson and company scoured Cambridge-area antique stores and their own homes for old cookware, vases, or furnishings originally sold by D/R almost 50 years ago. Marimekko donated some of its modern merchandise to the exhibit, and a photographer took portraits of people wearing original D/R clothing to hang alongside the furnishings. One former D/R employee even donated her Marimekko wedding gown and bridesmaid dress.

“Everybody just loved being in this place so much that they just wouldn’t go home,” Thompson says. “We started around June, worked every weekend throughout the summer up until the very last day of October.”

At the end of October, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of D/R’s introduction of Marimekko to the United States, Thompson held a reception in the award-winning building. The Marimekko president flew in from Finland to attend.

Those hoping to walk around inside the exhibit or purchase any of the unusual pieces on display will be disappointed—all glass doors on all sides are locked and passersby can only admire the pieces from the street.

“It’s such a great use of the space during a period of time when the owners of the building are still waiting for an appropriate tenant,” executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association Denise E. Jillson says. “The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive, as well as grateful.”

Jillson adds that many longtime Cambridge residents remembered the innovative products introduced by D/R fondly and were ecstatic at their reemergence.

Thompson says the exhibit design came together “out of memory” and “sort of like playing cards.”

“We worked with what we could, and with what everybody remembered,” she says. “It’s a genuine reliving, and everybody’s who lived in Cambridge remembers [D/R].”

Estelle Pedro, assistant manager of nearby store Clothware, says that while she had no idea whether having the D/R retrospective next door is improving her own shop’s business, she knows from personal experience the importance of the window display.

“It helps to have something there than nothing at all, of course,” Pedro says. “I also think it’s very smart of them to display an example of what they want to see in a tenant.”

The D/R retrospective runs through April 2010. Meanwhile, Poorvu is still seeking a permanent tenant. Sensitive to the original design concepts and ambitions espoused by the Thompsons and D/R, Poorvu has had difficulty finding an appropriate occupant to replace Crate and Barrel.

“We want an exciting tenant who will use the building properly,” he says.

–Staff writer Shan Wang can be reached at wang38@fas.harvard.edu