Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe was a visionary Swedish jewelry designer celebrated for her minimalist, modernist approach and for creating some of the most iconic designs of the 20th century. Often referred to simply as "Torun," she defied conventions of both jewelry and gender, producing elegant, wearable art that emphasized fluid lines, natural materials, and a deep sense of harmony and balance.




Born in Malmö, Sweden, Torun was the daughter of a sculptor and a town planner, and her upbringing instilled in her a strong creative spirit and independent mindset. She began designing jewelry as a teenager and later studied at the Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm. Even early in her career, Torun broke with tradition by choosing to work in materials like twisted silver wire, rock crystal, and semi-precious stones—rejecting opulence in favor of purity and movement.




In the 1950s and ’60s, Torun became a leading figure in avant-garde design circles in Europe. She gained international recognition not only for her groundbreaking aesthetics but also for her defiant position as one of the few prominent female silversmiths in a male-dominated industry. Her work embodied an organic elegance—light, fluid, and sculptural, with asymmetry and open spaces that invited interaction with the body. She once said, “A piece of jewelry should be a symbol of love, a token of faith, or a reminder of a moment of happiness. It should not be a status symbol.”




Perhaps her most enduring contributions came through her long collaboration with the Danish silver company Georg Jensen, which began in 1969. For Jensen, she designed several iconic pieces, including the Vivianna bangle watch, a sleek, open-ended timepiece that merged form and function while challenging the very notion of time as restrictive. Her creations for Georg Jensen—bracelets, necklaces, and rings—remain among the company’s best-known and best-selling designs.




Torun’s personal life was as unconventional as her work. She lived in Paris, Germany, Indonesia, and finally in the South of France, where she became involved with the spiritual movement Subud. Her international lifestyle and openness to different cultures deeply informed her creative worldview. Today, Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe is remembered not only as a master jeweler, but also as a pioneer of modern design.

Nanna Ditzel, fondly known as the “First Lady of Danish Design,” was born in Copenhagen in 1923. She was trained as a cabinetmaker before enrolling at the School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen where she met future husband Jørgen Ditzel. In 1946 the two established a design studio producing an array of jewelry, ceramics, textiles, and furniture including the iconic Hanging Egg chair (1959). In 1956 the pair was awarded the Lunning Prize for their Children’s High Chair. After Jørgen’s death in 1961, Nanna continued the practice on her own eventually moving to London where she established the Interspace International Furniture and Design Centre.

Born in 1907 in New York to an American mother and French-Italian father, Alexander Girard and his family soon moved to Italy where he was raised in a Florentine villa surrounded by art and antiques. As a boy he filled notebooks with creative design sketches displaying an early attention to detail and interest in other cultures even imaging his own country with regional flags and unique symbolism. Inspiration from international folk art became a staple of his artistic legacy as he amassed thousands of artifacts from around the world. Girard studied architecture in Rome, London and New York as his influential and celebrated career began.




Girard designed and directed the groundbreaking show For Modern Living at the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts in 1949, a predecessor to the Good Design shows hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York which he eventually participated in and juried. While living in Michigan in 1952, he was hired by friend and collaborator Charles Eames at Herman Miller eventually establishing the company’s textile division as Director of Design until 1973. In addition to his collections of fabric and wallpaper, his “Environment Enrichment Panels” promoted humanization of the corporate workplace and in 1967 he released the “Girard Group” collection of furniture.




Girard applied vibrant color combinations, sensibility for arranging bold patterns, and passion for playful decoration to his work in textiles, interiors, furniture, graphics, communication and corporate design among many other disciplines. Throughout his career he lent his design to private commissions such as the high modernist Irwin Miller House in Columbus, Indiana with architect Eero Saarinen in 1957, the opulent Latin-American-themed restaurant interior of La Fonda del Sol that opened in 1960 inside the New York Time & Life Building, and a corporate redesign of all visual aspects of Braniff International Airways in 1965.




He challenged the modern aesthetic which rejected decoration and instead created a unique balance of craftsmanship and industry, expression and function, past and present. Known for his positive approach and thoughtful manner he elegantly melded different time periods and cultural backgrounds to create a distinct visual language.




Alexander Girard resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico until he died in 1993. His unique aesthetic vision and legacy is honored permanently by the Santa Fe Museum of International Folk Art’s Girard Wing and recently by a major retrospective from the archives at the Vitra Design Museum, Germany in 2016.

Arne Jacobsen was an architect and designer who approached his work from both perspectives, making major contributions to Functionalism and Danish Modern style. Born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, he won the silver medal for his chair design at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925 while an architecture student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. After winning the Danish Architect’s Association competition for his House of the Future design, he opened his own office in 1929. Jacobsen was forced to flee to Sweden in 1943 following the rise of the Nazi party, but later returned to Denmark ushering in a wave of landmark public and private commissions.