Pratt Institute

Education

BID, Pratt Institute

Biography

He became a faculty member and full-time tenured professor in 1993 when he was appointed as the Chairperson of the Graduate Industrial Design Department.

His career began in 1967 when, in collaboration with Andrew Morrison, he produced award-winning groups for Knoll International, a firm with which Bruce collaborated for 25 years. The partnership won the ALCOA Award, and awards from ASID, I.B.D., and ID Magazine. In 1976 Bruce established his own office. The designs his office produced included the Hannah Desk System for Knoll, which was chosen as a Design of the Decade by IDSA in 1990. In 1992, Bruce became president of CADRE, Pratt’s Center for Advanced Design Research and Education. That same year he was awarded the prestigious Bronze Apple for his collaboration with Dr. Dan Fechtner, Danae Willson and Arnold Wasserman in the creation of the first International Conference on Universal Design Access to Daily Living.

In 1993, Bruce resigned as Chair of the Pratt ID Department, to devote more time to teaching and the Presidency of CADRE. In 1993-1994 he created a series of seminars underwritten by ACME Architectural Walls, entitled Access by Design. In 1994 he left CADRE and created the Furniture Design Studio at Pratt, while pursuing his own professional work.

He established a series of furniture workshops that took place at leading design schools in different cities around the world. These workshops included the New Cafe Chair with Les Ateliers in Paris in 1995, the New Divan at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul in 1996, the Wilderness Chair at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho in 1997, and the Hyde Park Chair at the Royal College of Art in London in 1998. The resulting work of these workshops was planned to be subject for a book, World of Chairs.

In 1997, Knoll produced the latest Hannah Desk System. In 1998, Bruce co-curated and co-designed the exhibit, Unlimited by Design, at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, for which Bruce received a Federal Design Achievement Award in 2000. Unlimited by Design was named one of 12 most influential exhibits by Metropolis.