The design world is filled with larger-than-life personalities. They’re colorful, running at full speed (and volume) and seem to only be able to pull off feats of dash and daring if they’re for an adoring crowd.
Then, there are people like design and architecture journalist Pilar Viladas, who died recently at the age of 70. She was small in stature and quiet in demeanor but so skilled and smart she couldn’t help but grab your attention and secure your admiration. Pilar was the influential longtime design editor of the New York Times Magazine, among other roles, but she wasn’t a media personality, as someone of her professional standing could have been in the heyday of print journalism.
Those of us who had the pleasure of reading — or editing! — her work know that’s because she never made herself the subject of her stories. She never muddied her elegant prose with too much “voice” or extraneous detail. She knew exactly what she wanted to say about a subject and then said it in a way that made it easy for us to see what she saw in it.
At Introspective, we feel lucky to have frequently collaborated with Pilar. She was our secret weapon, not just because it required so little of our time and labor to polish her elegant prose but because assigning Pilar to write about an interior designer made that designer feel proud and validated. A Pilar profile was a stamp of approval — and often a definitive take on a person’s particular gifts.
Below is a sampling of her Introspective stories — gifts over the years from her to us, which we in turn have proudly shared with you.
