PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: industrial design
French designer
Charlotte Perriand was a French designer known for iconic 20th-century furniture, such as the LC “Fauteuil Grand Confort” set of Modernist living-room furniture that includes a chair, two sizes of sofas,...
American engineer
Igor Sikorsky was a pioneer in aircraft design who is best known for his successful development of the helicopter. Sikorsky’s father was a physician and professor of psychology. His mother also was a physician...
Italian automobile manufacturer
Enzo Ferrari was an Italian automobile manufacturer, designer, and racing-car driver whose Ferrari cars often dominated world racing competition in the second half of the 20th century. Enzo Ferrari was...
Brazilian architect and industrial designer
Lina Bo Bardi was an Italian-born Brazilian Modernist architect, industrial designer, historic preservationist, journalist, and activist whose work defied conventional categorization. She designed daring...
American engineer, architect, and futurist
R. Buckminster Fuller was an American engineer, architect, and futurist who developed the geodesic dome—the only large dome that can be set directly on the ground as a complete structure and the only practical...
Hungarian American designer and ceramicist
Eva Zeisel was a Hungarian-born American industrial designer and ceramicist. She is best known for her practical yet beautiful tableware, which bears a unique amalgamation of modern and classical design...
American architect and designer
Alexander Girard was an American architect and furniture, textile, graphic, and industrial designer whose vibrant, whimsical designs brought an element of joy to Mid-Century Modernism. Girard’s father...
French designer
Philippe Starck is a French designer known for his wide range of designs, including everything from interior design to household objects to boats to watches. He also worked as an architect. Most likely...
Russian scientist
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a Russian research scientist in aeronautics and astronautics who pioneered rocket and space research and the development and use of wind tunnels for aerodynamic studies. He was...
Native American engineer
Mary Golda Ross was a Cherokee mathematician who was the first Native woman to work as an engineer in the U.S. space program. She made history as the first female and only Native member of a highly secret...
Swiss-born industrial designer
Yves Béhar is a Swiss-born industrial designer and founder of the design and branding firm Fuseproject. Béhar is widely known for his work on the XO and XO-3 laptops, which were created in partnership...
British designer and entrepreneur
Terence Conran was an English designer, restaurateur, and businessman credited with making stylish housewares and home décor available to a wider market beginning in the 1960s. Conran attended the Central...
American engineer
John Augustus Roebling was a German-born American civil engineer, a pioneer in the design of suspension bridges. His best-known work is the Brooklyn Bridge of New York City, which was completed under the...
British inventor and industrial designer
James Dyson is a British inventor, industrial designer, and entrepreneur who successfully manufactured innovative household appliances and became a determined campaigner to restore engineering and technical...
German-born textile designer
Anni Albers was a German-born textile designer who was one of the most influential figures in textile arts in the 20th century. In addition to creating striking designs for utilitarian woven objects, she...
Soviet aircraft designer
Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev was one of the Soviet Union’s foremost aircraft designers, whose bureau (see Tupolev) produced a number of military bombers and civilian airliners—including the world’s first...
American industrial designer
Charles Harrison was an American industrial designer whose creations included such iconic consumer items as polypropylene trash cans (including those with wheels) and the plastic version of the 3-D View-Master...
American industrial designer
Raymond Loewy was a French-born American industrial designer who, through his accomplishments in product design beginning in the 1930s, helped to establish industrial design as a profession. Loewy studied...
American industrial designer
Henry Dreyfuss was a U.S. industrial designer noted for the number and variety of his pioneering designs for modern products. At age 17 Dreyfuss was designing sets for stage presentations at a Broadway...
American industrial designer
Richard Ten Eyck was an industrial designer whose career was integral to the development of American industry and its products after World War II. From 1938 to 1939 Ten Eyck attended the University of...
American engineer
John Knudsen Northrop was an American aircraft designer, an early advocate of all-metal construction and the flying wing design. Northrop graduated from high school in 1913 and in 1916 became a draftsman...
American engineer
Othmar Herman Ammann was an engineer and designer of numerous long suspension bridges, including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge over New York harbour, at its completion (1965) the longest single span in...
German architect
Peter Behrens was an architect noted for his influential role in the development of modern architecture in Germany. In addition, he was a pioneer in the field of industrial design. After attending the...
British designer
Christopher Dresser was an English designer whose knowledge of past styles and experience with modern manufacturing processes made him a pioneer in professional design. Dresser studied at the School of...
American industrial designer
John Frassanito is an American industrial designer whose computer-generated animations have been used to educate aerospace engineers and laypersons alike regarding future spaceflight missions for the U.S....
American aeronautical engineer
Jerome C. Hunsaker was an American aeronautical engineer who made major innovations in the design of aircraft and lighter-than-air ships. Upon graduating in 1908 from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis,...
German aircraft designer and test pilot
Kurt Tank was a leading aircraft designer and test pilot of the mid-20th century. After service in World War I, Tank studied electrical engineering at the Berlin Institute of Technology. In 1924, after...
American industrial designer
Charles Wilfred Butler was an industrial designer known for his work on aircraft during the 1950s and ’60s. During the 1930s Butler studied architecture and design in a variety of schools in and around...
Soviet scientist
Sergei Korolev was a Soviet designer of guided missiles, rockets, and spacecraft. Korolev was educated at the Odessa Building Trades School, the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, and the Moscow N.E. Bauman Higher...
American engineer
Leroy Randle Grumman was an American aeronautical engineer and founder of the Grumman Aerospace Corp. He designed some of the most effective naval aircraft used in World War II. After graduating from Cornell...
American industrial designer
Walter Dorwin Teague was an industrial designer who pioneered in the establishment of industrial design as a profession in the United States. After study at the Art Students League of New York (1903–07)...
British art patron and educator
Sir Henry Cole was an English public servant, art patron, and educator who is significant in the history of industrial design for his recognition of the importance of combining art and industry. At the...
American designer
Donald Deskey was an American industrial designer who helped establish industrial design as a profession. Deskey attended the University of California at Berkeley, the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (later...
American industrial designer
Harley Jefferson Earl was an industrial designer best known as the leading automotive stylist in the 20th-century United States. Earl studied at Stanford University but left school to work with his father...
British military engineer
Sir Barnes Wallis was a British aeronautical designer and military engineer who invented the innovative “dambuster” bombs used in World War II. Wallis trained as a marine engineer before joining the airship...
German engineer
Claudius Dornier was a pioneer German aircraft designer and builder. Dornier completed his education in 1907 at Munich’s technical college and three years later began working for Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin,...
Italian architect
Gio Ponti was an Italian architect and designer associated with the development of modern architecture and modern industrial design in Italy. Ponti graduated in 1921 from the Milan Polytechnic. From 1923...
French inventor
Émile Levassor was a French businessman and inventor who developed the basic configuration of the automobile. Levassor took over a firm that made woodworking machinery. When René Panhard joined the firm...
British engineer
Frederick William Lanchester was an English automobile and aeronautics pioneer who built the first British automobile in 1896. In 1891, after attending Hartley University College (now the University of...
German engineer
Willy Messerschmitt was a German aircraft engineer and designer. Messerschmitt was educated at the Munich Institute of Technology, where he received a degree in engineering in 1923. From 1926 he was employed...
British automobile designer
Sir Alec Issigonis was a British automobile designer who created the best-selling, economical Mini and the perennially popular Morris Minor. The son of a Greek merchant, Issigonis immigrated to London...
French pioneer aviator and airplane manufacturer
Henri Farman was a French aviation pioneer and aircraft builder who popularized the use of ailerons, moveable surfaces on the trailing edge of a wing that provide a means of lateral control. (Read Orville...
American aircraft designer
Donald Douglas was an American aircraft designer who founded the Douglas Aircraft Company. Douglas assisted Jerome C. Hunsaker in building the first wind tunnel, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...
American automobile designer and race–car driver
Louis Chevrolet was an automobile designer and racer whose name is borne by the Chevrolet Division of General Motors, an enterprise from which he derived little profit and of which he was a minor employee...
German aircraft designer
Hugo Junkers was a German aircraft designer and early proponent of the monoplane and all-metal construction of aircraft. In 1895 Junkers founded the firm Junkers and Company, which made boilers, radiators,...
American theatrical designer
Norman Bel Geddes was an American theatrical designer whose clean, functional decors contributed substantially to the trend away from naturalism in 20th-century stage design. As an important industrial...
American engineer and manufacturer
Henry M. Leland was an American engineer and manufacturer whose rigorous standards contributed to the development of the automobile. After an apprenticeship as a machinist in Worcester, Massachusetts,...
German engineer and manufacturer
Wilhelm Maybach was a German engineer and industrialist who was the chief designer of the first Mercedes automobiles (1900–01). From 1883 Maybach was associated with Gottlieb Daimler in developing efficient...
German engineer and inventor
Gottlieb Daimler was a German mechanical engineer who was a major figure in the early history of the automotive industry. Daimler studied engineering at the Stuttgart polytechnic institute and then worked...
Danish architect
Arne Jacobsen was a Danish architect and designer of many important buildings in an austere modern style. He is known internationally for his industrial design, particularly for his three-legged stacking...