Marc Newson

Lucky Strike Designer Award 2011 for
Marc Newson – Cosmopolite of design

The Lucky Strike Designer Award, one of the most important designer awards worldwide, offering a prize of 50,000 euros, goes this year to Australian Marc Newson, one of the most influential designers of his generation.

With Marc Newson, the Raymond Loewy Foundation – established in 1991 by British American Tobacco in Hamburg – is honouring “the very successful and globally active all-round designer for industrial products and goods for everyday life”, states the jury for the Foundation. Marc Newson will be presented with the Lucky Strike Designer Award on 27 October at stilwerk in Hamburg.

Born in 1963 in Sydney, Australia, Newson spent his childhood travelling in Europe and Asia, before studying jewellery and sculpture at Sydney College of the Arts (SCA).  He started experimenting with furniture design as a student and, after graduating in 1984, was awarded a grant from the Australian Crafts Council, following which he organised an exhibition – featuring his legendary Lockheed Lounge – at the Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Sydney. The futuristic lounge chair, an icon of contemporary design, acquired additional fame in Madonna’s music video “Rain”.

After working and living in Tokyo and Paris, Newson moved on to London in 1997, where he founded Marc Newson Ltd. He designed industrially manufactured glass items for littala, kitchen and bath accessories for Alessi as well as furniture, lighting and household objects for Magis, B&B Italia, Idée and Dupont Corian. In addition, he designed vehicles, such as the MN01 motorbike for the Danish manufacturer Biomega and the 021C concept car for Ford, as well as the interior outfitting of a Falcon 900B private jet. Newson also designed the uniforms for the Australian Olympic Games team in 2004 in Athens, Greece, the Zvezdochka shoe for Nike and fashion collection for G-Star as well as the Scope luggage series for Samsonite. In 2006, Newson took over the position of Creative Director at Qantas Airways and continued to work on the development of the interior design for the A380 as well as the airport lounges in Sydney and Melbourne.

Newson’s work has not only been honoured with numerous awards – including six Good Design Awards from Chicago Atheneum – it has also been displayed in various exhibitions. His pieces are present in most major permanent museum collections – for example at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the London Design Museum, the Musée d’Art Moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou as well as at the Vitra Design Museum. Marc Newson is an exceptional professor for design at Sydney College of the Arts and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In the United Kingdom, he has been appointed “Royal Designer for Industry”.

With Marc Newson as winner of the Lucky Strike Designer Award 2011, the jury is following the tradition of the Raymond Loewy Foundation of highlighting the broad spectrum of design – the creation of things, both in terms of their content and formally – in its entirety and of bringing public awareness to it.

The design centre stilwerk in Hamburg is the exclusive partner of the Lucky Strike Designer and the Lucky Strike Junior Designer Awards 2011. As a platform for interior furnishings, design and lifestyle – with 28 premium shops at a single source – and since its opening in 1996, stilwerk has made a name for itself that goes beyond Hamburg’s borders. Today, stilwerk manages further branches in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Vienna.