Jane Thompson

Thompson (née Fiske) was educated in the fine and applied arts at Vassar College with graduate work at Bennington College and NYU Institute of Fine Arts, her career has been devoted to the interaction of many facets of applied design. She spent early years in the Museum of Modern Art, becoming acting Assistant Curator in the Department of Architecture. This was followed by positions as Architecture Editor of Interiors Magazine. In 1954, she helped found Industrial Design magazine (later known as International Design) and served as its Editor-in-Chief. In the 1960s, sponsored by Edgar Kaufmann Jr.'s Foundation, she worked with Walter Gropius on an exploration of the creative educational methods of the original Bauhaus; she became a partner in architect Ben Thompson's retail venture, Design Research, during its 60s expansion from Cambridge to New York to California. She married Ben Thompson in 1969. Thompson handled programming and planning at Benjamin Thompson & Associates, Architects and Planners (BTA), working on large urban planning projects, including the Chicago Navy Pier and Grand Central Business Improvement District. She later founded the Thompson Design Group, working with Pratap Talwar on well-received large-scale redevelopment plans, such as for Houston's Buffalo Bayou waterway. Thompson was active in the International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA) from 1971 to 2002, as a board member, program chairman, and speaker. She died at the age of 89 on August 22, 2016.