AD PRO - Mayer Rus: Remembering Pilar Viladas

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In Memoriam

Dear friends, I have sad news to report. The design world lost one of its guiding lights with the recent passing of the eminent writer, editor, and critic Pilar Viladas. A mainstay of design coverage in The New York Times for years, Pilar left her mark on many of the world’s foremost journals of design, including Architectural Digest. Her clarion voice and incisive eye cut through the miasma of trends and fashion and superficial style, framing design in the appropriate context of history and contemporary culture. She was a champion of talent (both young and established), an inquisitive connoisseur, and a fierce defender of the increasingly antique virtues of originality, perspicacity, and quality.

A familiar presence at gallery openings, building christenings, and product launches, Pilar was habitually excited to limn the new and novel. She set the gold standard for what it means to be a serious design journalist, drawing from a deep well of knowledge coupled with a personal passion that never dimmed over the course of her storied career. In other words, she was a true believer in the ennobling power of great design and architecture. I am certainly not alone among my colleagues in affirming her profound influence and her generosity of spirit. She was a wise friend and trusted soundboard, with a wicked sense of humor and a gimlet eye that never failed to discern the meaningful and the trivial. Our world is poorer without her.