Five Contributions Virgil Abloh Made to the Worlds of Architecture and Home Design
Abloh, the Louis Vuitton menswear designer and prolific creative who died last month, applied his architecture training to build whatever he wanted.
Abloh, the Louis Vuitton menswear designer and prolific creative who died last month, applied his architecture training to build whatever he wanted.
While being introduced to a room full of architecture graduate students at Columbia University in 2017, Virgil Abloh had somewhat of an epiphany. He had arrived that night prepared with a lecture titled "Everything in Quotes," a credo meant to challenge attendees to take on the status quo. But as the evening’s host began by describing a prolific, discipline-spanning career—one built on the foundations of both an undergraduate and master’s degree in architecture—Abloh saw himself in a new light.
Virgil Abloh was best known as the founder of streetwear label Off-White and the creative director of menswear for Louis Vuitton.
Courtesy of Off-White
"Let me go back to my notes," says Abloh as he takes the podium, "because as Michael Rock was speaking, I realized I needed to reinvent my whole presentation." In a pivot, Abloh announces, "Young Architects Can Change the World by Not Building Buildings."
A bold statement to direct at aspiring architects, Abloh’s stance crystalizes when you learn how, while attending his first architecture course as an undergrad, he and his classmates were told by their professor that fewer than three percent of them would design buildings. Still, he pushed onward, taking lessons learned in academia and applying them fearlessly to forever change the worlds of art, fashion, music, and design.
In 2019 Virgil Abloh created Efflorescence, a collection of brutalist-inspired furniture for Galerie Kreo in Paris.
Photo by Marie Canciani
In his life and career, Abloh, who died in November at age 41, never did build buildings. Instead, he was the creative director of rapper Kanye West’s agency, Donda, and the first Black creative director at Louis Vuitton. He founded his own luxury fashion and home goods brand, Off-White, and frequently DJed at social gatherings and events, to name just a few of his pursuits. That he was able to drift effortlessly between an array of creative arenas should provide enduring inspiration to anyone, whether they intend to build buildings or not.
"I distinctly feel like this generation, our generation, is the first one where we can unveil the mask, give the kids the tools, and let them create," Abloh said at Columbia in 2017. "Then we’ll have a better existence afterwards."
In recognition of Abloh’s boundary-breaking creative spirit, we’ve collected five of his contributions to the worlds of architecture and home design.
An Homage to Architect and Designer Jean Prouvé
With his interpretation of Jean Prouvé’s classic designs, Virgil Abloh hoped to inspire a new generation of young designers.
Courtesy of Vitra
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