William Katavolos Receives 2012 Rowena Reed Kostellow Award
Awards
January 19, 2012
Genius designer, architect, visionary and inspirational professor, Bill Katavolos, will be honored with the Rowena Reed Kostellow Award for his dedication to three dimensional design. The ceremony will take place the Knoll Showroom, 76 9th Avenue, NYC, on March 8, 2012.
The Award recognizes people who advance the principals of design that Rowena Reed Kostellow developed. Katavolos said that Rowena's teachings “are as important as physics!” I heard about his 48 hour marathon charettes when I was a boy! The design process could really be fun! The committee selected Bill “because of his long dedication to multidisciplinary exploration, the beauty of his work, and because he is truly an amazing man,” says Tucker Viemeister, Rowena Fund Chair.
Until the late 1940s, Bill Katavolos was a painter; then he and fellow Pratt students Ross Littell and Douglas Kelley produced a furniture line including the “T” chair, which is now in the collection of MoMA and the Louvre. He designed furniture collections for Laverne International, partition systems for Time-Life and Owens Corning, and a suspension ring system for the [US Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Moscow]. His manifesto, Organics, published in Holland in 1961 became the basis for chemical architecture. His theory of the fundamental structure of nature is being prepared for publication.
In one of his stimulating moments, Bill said that “If you really want to see Rome, pick one cat and follow it everywhere!”
Bill joins the other champions of the abstract principals of visual relationships who have received the award, including: Gina Caspi, Ivan Rigby, Eva Zeisel, Gerald Gulotta, William Fogler, Eugene Grossman, Ralph Appelbaum, James Fulton, Louis Nelson, Judy Collins, Bruce Hannah, Ted Muehling, Lucia N. DeRespinis, Tom Patti, and Leonard Bacich. These teachers, entrepreneurs and designers embody the mission of the fund: to encourage and guide a systematic educational approach to all forms of visual expression, which is inspired by Rowena’s teaching.
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