Design Research (store)


Design Research was a retail store founded in 1953 by Ben Thompson in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and which introduced the concept of lifestyle store. In the 1970s under subsequent ownership, it became a chain of a dozen stores across the United States, and went bankrupt in 1979. Thompson's goal was to provide "a place where people could buy everything they needed for contemporary living", notably modern European furnishings and in particular Scandinavian design.
D/R has continued to have an outsized reputation: in 2000, a survey of influential design stores named D/R as number one, though it had then been closed for 22 years. The store influenced later retailers like Crate & Barrel, Design Within Reach, Pottery Barn, Workbench, and Conran's.

Selection of products

Design Research carried an eclectic selection of products, from furniture to clothing, from toys to pots and pans, at a wide range of prices, introducing the idea of a lifestyle store. It carried furnishings by such designers as Marcel Breuer, Hans Wegner, Alvar Aalto, and Joe Colombo.
Design Research was the exclusive US representative for the Finnish clothing and textiles of Marimekko from 1959 to 1976. Jacqueline Kennedy was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1960 in a Marimekko sundress purchased at D/R.

Stores

The original Design Research store was in a 19th-century wood frame mansard house at 57 Brattle Street, in Harvard Square, Cambridge. D/R later added stores in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts; Lexington Avenue and East 57th Street in New York City; and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.
Harvard University bought the original Brattle Street store and demolished it in 1969 to build the Gutman Library of its School of Education.
In 1969, Thompson opened a new, much larger, Cambridge store in his [|revolutionary new building on Brattle Street] with entirely glass walls.
Until 1969, D/R stores were all located in urban areas, but under new management, D/R opened stores in suburban shopping malls, which Thompson disapproved of: South Shore Plaza in Braintree, Massachusetts ; South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California ; and The Mall at Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts. The company also opened urban stores at the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, and in downtown Philadelphia in Rittenhouse Square.

The Brattle Street store

In 1969, Thompson moved the original Cambridge store to a revolutionary new building designed by his firm, Benjamin Thompson and Associates, at 48 Brattle Street in Harvard Square, on a block that came to be known as "Architects' Corner". The 5-story building consists of flat concrete slabs supported by interior columns, and enclosed by frameless tempered glass walls. The use of butted glass with no frame or mullions was unprecedented, and "allowed D/R to be a building almost 'without architecture'".
It immediately received favorable reviews: "points the way to a method of glass building that could create a warmer city, adding color and light and optimism to the life of the streets". The building won many awards over the years:

Later tenants

Since D/R closed in 1979, the Brattle Street building has had various tenants:

Corporate history

Design Research was started by the architect Ben Thompson in 1953. Spencer Field, a furniture designer, joined the firm as a 50-50 business partner in the early 1950s. By 1966, it was clear that the company was underfinanced for Thompson's expansion plans, and he started looking for outside investors. The company was reorganized as a new corporate entity in 1967 and was recapitalized, with Field's interest being bought out in February 1968 by Peter J. Sprague, an entrepreneur and chairman of National Semiconductor, who became chairman.
In 1969, Sprague forced Thompson out as director of the company, but Thompson remained a stockholder. Under a succession of presidents, D/R opened more new stores, but Thompson felt that they had lost their distinctive style and approach. By 1976, the business was deteriorating, and in 1979 it declared bankruptcy. Rights to the names "Design Research" and "D/R" were bought jointly by Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn.