I read your tribute to Victor on the phd-design list, and thought it a splendid personal view of the man. I would like to use your text as an obituary in Design Research News which will go out to over 9000 folks this week.
Do I have your permission to re-use your text? I will of course credit you as the author.
kind regards
David
____________________________________
David Durling HonFDRS PhD http://durling.tel
> On 1 Dec 2019, at 17:24, João DeSouzaLeite <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> *Victor Margolin, a tribute*
>
>
>
> Yesterday, I heard from third parties about the passing of Victor. I think
> I can say we became friends to him a long time ago—Evelyn Grumach, my wife,
> and I.
>
>
>
> I met him a few decades ago at PUC-Rio, a Catholic University in Rio de
> Janeiro, in one of the first design conferences in Brazil. I invited him to
> have lunch with us at home, and then we went to visit a wonderful Brazilian
> folk art museum, Museu do Pontal, in Recreio dos Bandeirantes, after Barra
> da Tijuca, a far neighborhood in Rio.
>
> On the way, something happened that I’m never tired to retell.
>
> We left our house in Leblon by car towards the first tunnel, Dois Irmãos
> tunnel. The entrance to this first neighborhood, São Conrado, was a
> glorious one, the blue sky with flying humans on its colorful wings.
>
>
>
> How beautiful! Wonderful! he said.
>
>
>
> Towards Barra da Tijuca, where one can find a very strange and not so good,
> even awful architecture, we passed through another tunnel, and a strange
> silence settled in the car. And we kept passing by those buildings, always
> in silence.
>
>
>
> Some minutes have passed, and interjections began to be heard:
>
> Jesus! Oh god! Jesus Christ!
>
> And his question finally came:
>
> Don't you guys have a school of architecture here?
>
>
>
> * * *
>
>
>
> This was Victor Margolin, mindful of everything around him. From the
> activity of afro-descendants designers in Chicago about which he made a
> fine small-print record to urban art demonstrations in the Mexican
> community of Chicago, where he led us excited and delighted to provide us
> with such a stroll, eating in a sensational very small place, just a
> counter. Yet, he could turn his attention to kitsch demonstrations gathered
> at the University of Illinois Museum of Corn-temporary Art, recorded
> in *Culture
> is Everywhere*. Or even from the contemporary production of posters in the
> most hidden corners of the planet to political issues of design.
>
> A sensitive look, diverse in the objects of his admiration, Victor was a
> lover of jazz and blues. To him, I owe the discovery of great musicians.
>
>
>
> A few years ago, he suffered a fall in Seoul after receiving a lifetime
> achievement award, which caused him serious motor problems. Which made him
> very dismayed to move from his beautiful Chicago apartment, a large loft in
> an old building, a disused film industry warehouse, to Washington DC to
> make life easier. Still, the last time we spoke, he said he had found
> someone to help him finish the third volume of his quite impressive *World
> History of Design*.
>
>
>
> Blunt when necessary, his kindness always made conversation possible, an
> article so scarce today, that could cover from the delight of the movies he
> loved to technical questions of historiography. I remember, smiling to
> myself, hearing from him at a table in Carla Pernambuco's little bistro in
> Sao Paulo:
>
> how nice we can sit like this and talk about so many other subjects than
> design!
>
>
>
> Undoubtedly, all of us will lack his humor, his ability to instigate, and
> his almost ubiquitous presence in debates about design history. We will
> still miss our friend.
>
>
>
>
>
> João de Souza Leite | PhD, Professor Associado / Associate Professor |
> Coordenador/Head
> *Programa Pós-Graduação em Design / Design Graduate Program | PPDEsdi /
> Uerj*
> Coordenador TCC 2017 / Coordinator BFA 2017
> Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial / Universidade do Estado do Rio de
> Janeiro
>
> School of Design / State University of Rio de Janeiro/ Brazil
>
> DRS Design Research Society, member
>
> http://uerj.academia.edu/JoãodeSouzaLeite
>
> Curriculum Lattes
> http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.do?id=K4781268E4
> <http://uerj.academia.edu/Jo%C3%A3odeSouzaLeite>
> Rua do Passeio 80, Centro, Rio de Janeiro – RJ, 20021-290
>
> Endereço/Home address
> Rua General Artigas 361 #903 Leblon 22441-140 Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brasil
> Telefone (55+21) 9.9768.8608
>
>
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