Robert Blaich, Architect and Designer

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Robert Blaich

Robert Ian Blaich (Bob) born February 25, 1930, in New York State, is an architect, designer and Design management leader, who has contributed over 60 years to the growth and development of the design profession. He is president and principal at Blaich Associates. He studied at Syracuse University where he graduated with a bachelors in fine arts in Architecture and Industrial Design in 1952. In recognition of his professional legacy he was awarded an Honorable Doctorate degree from his alma mater, Syracuse University in 1990. 

He is best known for his design management work at Herman Miller, Royal Philips Electronics, Teague Design and Blaich Associates. He has written 2 books and has published, exhibited and lectured internationally on the strategic and corporate role of design. He has been a jury member of many international design competitions and on the advisory boards of an extensive list of design, educational and cultural institutions. His work is recognized world-wide by international professional and academic institutions.

Personalia

Bob Blaich is married to Janet Blaich (nee, Streithof) for 66 years. Jan is an author, speech writer, editor and publisher. They have 3 children, 5 grandchildren and one great grandson. They now live in Aspen, Colorado.

Career

Bob Blaich began his professional career working for Thonet, German/Austrian furniture manufacturer. His first assignment was to design fixed seating for the United Nations’ General Assembly and the Security Council. This seating is still in use today in the UN Headquarters in New York City.

Herman Miller

Bob Blaich worked at Herman Miller, Inc., Zeeland Michigan, from 1953 to 1979. In 1968, he became Vice President of Design and Corporate Communications. With the support of CEO Hugh De Pree, during this period he worked closely with leading consultant designers Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson and Alexander Girard. He also recruited designers to Herman Miller including Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick, designers of the iconic Aeron Chair, Bruce Burdick, Vernor Panton, Poul Kjaerholm, Fritz Haller and others. He also led major design projects including the design of the "Action Office" system, the very successful cubicle office system now found in offices throughout corporate America. He also led many Eames seating projects, Nelson office projects and Girard Textiles and furniture designs.

Royal Philips Electronics

In 1980, as Senior Managing Director, he became the head of design at Philips, now Royal Philips Electronics in the Netherlands, a position he held until his corporate retirement in 1992. At Philips he integrated all 29 design studios and offices worldwide, with over 300 designers, into one corporate function and transformed the design culture from being service oriented into a strategic, corporate, business function reporting directly into the Board of Management. He also expanded the role of design, from industrial and graphic design into a total corporate, brand identity, design competency. This involved participation in strategy and innovation, brand design identity and harmonization, user interface design and communications design. During this period Philips Design won over 500 international design awards and was represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, the Pompideau Museum, Paris, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and other museums in Germany, Denmark, Brazil and the USA.

After his corporate retirement Robert Blaich was followed by Stefano Marzano, a member of his Design Management team, as the first Chief Design Officer and Sr. VP of Philips.

He established Blaich Associates in 1992. In 1999 Blaich was elected Chairman of the Board of Teague Design; formerly Walter Dorwin Teague Associates, at more than 90 years old, it is the oldest Industrial Design Firm in the United States.

Memberships, Board and Advisory Functions

He was a member of the Design Institute of Australia, BNO of the Netherlands, The Royal Society of the Arts UK. He was a member of the advisory board of the College of Visual and Performing Arts of Syracuse University. In the mid 80's he was a member of the Advisory Board of the Design Management Institute of the London Business School. He is Emaratis Member of the Board of overseers at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Illinois. He was on the Board of INDEX from 2005 to 2007 in Copenhagen, and is a past Board Member of the International Design Conference in Aspen Colorado (IDCA). He was member of the board of the American Center for Design in Chicago from 1989 to 1994. He was President of the International Council of Design Societies (ICSID) from 1985 to 1987, now referred to as World Design Organization (WDO). With ICSID he organised the Philips/ICSID International Design Prize for young designers.

Awards, Honors and Recognitions

Blaich was inducted into the IDSA Academy of Fellows in 1981. Bob Blaich was awarded a doctor of Fine Arts (Honoris Causa) in 1990 by Syracuse University. In 1992 he was appointed Officer in the Order of Oranje Nassau (Knighthood) by her Majesty the Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. He is a Fellow of the Industrial Designers of America (IDSA), in 2006 he received the IDSA Personal Recognition award and in 2016 he was included the "IDSA 50 Notable Members in the past 50 Years" which also includes Niels Diffrient, Jay Doblin, Henry Dreyfuss, Raymond Loewy, Bill Moggridge, Walter Dorwin Teague and Massimo Vignelli, among others. In 1992 he became the fifth recipient of the prestigious ICSID World Design Medal, awarded for "outstanding contributions to the Industrial Design Profession on a Global Basis".

Impact and Legacy

Robert Blaich's work and is typified by the furniture products and systems, many of which are now design classics, manufactured by Herman Miller, where a design-led culture was embedded by its founders and business leaders of the D. J. De Pree family.

Significant, as verified by many experts, is his contribution to the design profession world-wide in the transformation of the role of design from a "service" into a strategic, corporate, management function and an integral part of the total product and brand identity creation process, which was accomplished at Philips and set reference standards for the design profession. 

In the 80's, Philips was an multinational, diversified electronics giant, the 37th largest corporation the the world, participating in the fields of Lighting, Consumer Electronics, Domestic Appliances, Medical, Industrial, Data and Electronic systems and components. It employed over 350,000 people and operated 420 factories in 60 countries with a turnover above 28 billion USA dollars. As noted in the book, "Design for Product Success", where 15 design case studies are presented "which give an insight into how successful companies in industry in Europe, Japan and the US work with design..." With over 200 designers at that time, design at Philips was one of the largest corporate departments anywhere in the world. By comparison, in the book, the number of designers in other companies were: Digital Equipment 22, Yamaha 24, Texas instruments 33, Dictaphone 5, Canon Incorporated 18, Braun AG 15.

In this context, in the early 80's Blaich was one of the pioneers in design leadership in an international corporate environment. Christopher Lorenz, at the time management editor of The Financial Times, wrote in 1986, "the Design Revolution at Philips began slightly before the elevation of marketing, rather that following its wake, as in many other companies. The key step was the recruitment in late 1980 of Robert Blaich."

In his book, "A Study of the Corporate Management of Design" John Heskett, professor at Revensbourne College of Design and Communication, notes, "to make design a consistent factor in Philips' future competitiveness, he (Robert Blaich) proposed a strategy with four major elements, namely design policy, design management, improved professional standards and an equal partnership for Design."  

Blaich summarizes "I described a step by step process for achieving the goal to improve the quality of product design. Briefly, the steps were first to strengthen the centralized design organization in its structure, process and resources. A beginning was then made to tame the design chaos resulting from independent actions in numerous design groups around the world. The harmonization programs was the centerpiece for providing design guidance and coherency." 

Peter Gorb, Senior Fellow in Design Management at the London Business School, says of Bob Blaich's function as Managing Director of Corporate Industrial Design: "As such he is responsible for the design of all their (Philips) products worldwide. His job is probably the biggest and most international design management job there is."

"But as the 1980's progressed industrial design began to find its way into nooks and crannies throughout the labyrinthine Philips organization. It had very definitely become a vital strategic weapon in the company's fight for survival and supremacy." Confirms Christopher Lorenz.

Long time colleague at Philips, Frans van der Putt notes Blaich's impact in the design group's increased effort and effectiveness throughout the company: "It needs to be added that under Blaich's leadership, Corporate Industrial Design (CID) made a significant growth. Not only in size and quality, but also in the scope of activities. In 1980 there was a total of 632 projects completed. Ten years later the total was 1498."

This progress is also validated by the many design awards received over the years. As John Heskett notes, "In 1987 62 design awards were received, including some of the most prestigious in the field, such as the ID Design Review in the USA... The Japanese G Mark was awarded to five items, and the Gute Industrieform in West Germany to no less than thirty one... The record of such success in recent years is becoming impressive." 

Fertile Ground

In his book, "Product Design and Corporate Strategy", Blaich describes the concept of Fertile Ground as the basis for creating a corporate culture for design to flourish: "The fertile ground is fundamental to the success of Design in any company. Because design is an enabler of research, engineering, production and marketing, the fertile ground must exist company wide. Design gives tangible form to technology, innovations and to product and marketing plans. This means establishing and continuously nurturing a cultural awareness of design and its crucial role as enabler. The fertile ground factor underscores the importance of implanting and cultivating the concept of design excellence as a core value of the company with the care and continuous toil of the patient farmer..."

Publications

• "Product Design and Corporate Strategy", Robert Blaich with Janet Blaich, McGraw- Hill Inc., USA, 1993 (ISBN 0-07-005671-4 Search this book on .)
• "New and Notable Product Design", Robert Blaich, Rockport Publishers, 1995 (ISBN 978-1564961204 Search this book on .)

Further Reading

• "London Business School Design Talks!", edited by Peter Gorb, ISBN 0-85072-218-7 Search this book on .. Published in 1988 in London, U.K by the Design Council. Lead article "Design as a Corporate Strategy", by Robert Blaich. Other articles are by Christopher Lorenz, who was then the Management Editor of the Financial Times and Design experts including: Wally Olins, Sir Terence Conron, Rodney Fitch, Richard Rogers, Stephen Bayley, Colin Forbes and Uwe Bahnsen.
• "The Design Dimension: The New Competitive Weapon for Business", by Christopher Lorenz 1986. Blackwell Press, ISBN 0-631-13747-5 Search this book on .. Chapter 9, pgs. 105-113, "A Global Quest for Speed: Philips", Covers the role of the Head of Corporate Design with specific exampales of effective Design Management. Other Chapters cover other companies like Olivetti, John Deere, Sony, Ford, etc.
• "The Design Agenda-A guide to Successful Design Management" by Rachel Cooper and Mike Press. John Wiley & Sons, Publishing, ISBN 0-471-94106-9 Search this book on .. Chapter 4 "Corporate Design Strategies: Competing Globally", Pgs. 119-122, cites the managing Director of Design at Philips, as a model for the strategic use and management of design.
• "Philips: A study of the Corporate Management of Design", John Heskett, 1989. Trefoil Publications, London U.K., ISBN 0847810402 Search this book on .. In depth look at the work of design in Philips during Blaich's leadership. Part of a series of books that look at the role of design management in the corporate environment.
• "Designing for Product Success", Design Management Institute, Boston, in collaboration with Harvard Business School, Published by the Danish Design Centre, Copenhagen, 1990. ISBN 87-87385-05-8 Search this book on .. Looks at 15 case studies including Philips Design and the role of design managment under Blaich. The Book is the result of the TRIAD Design Research Project of the Design Management Institue, Boston, USA.
• "On Design Leadership" A booklet by the University of Industrial Arts Helsinki. ISBN 951-9384-55-3 Search this book on ., is series of articles by members of the UIAH Leadership Advisory Board, which included Albert Alessi, Ezio Manzini,,Jens Bernsen, Ann Maria Boutin, Charles Burnette, Tapani Hyvonen, Stefan Lengyel, Peter Lloyd Jones, Alexander Neumeister and Robert Blaich's article, "Design Leadership: A way of integrating function, technology, marketing orientation and quality", based on a talk he gave at UIAH where he was Visiting Professor.
• "Design Conference Papers: A strategic Partnership with Business" 1992, "The Meaning of Strategic Partnership", speech made during the conference sponsored by the American Center for Design in Chicago. Other presenters at the conference included Tom Hardy, Bill Moggridge, Robert Brunner, Bruce and Susan Burdick, Michael McCoy, Dale Fahnstrom and John Heskett.

External Links

https://www.philips.com/a-w/about/philips-design.html

https://www.idsa.org/content/robert-i-blaich-fidsa

https://ifworlddesignguide.com/juror/7263-robert-i-blaich

https://id.iit.edu/people/dr-robert-ian-blaich/

https://www.hermanmiller.com/stories/why-magazine/chain-reaction/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips

References

American industrial designers

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