Serge Chermayeff

Serge Chermayeff studied at Downsend School, Harrow School and IIT Institute of Design. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is architecture, spatial planning and industrial design right. Employment is recorded with Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. Work by Serge Chermayeff is recorded in the collections of Yale University Art Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and Albert Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

• Name — Serge Chermayeff • Native Name — Серж Чермаев • Birth Name — Sergius Ivanovich Issakovitch • Born — 8 October 1900 • Birthplace — Grozny, Terek Oblast, Caucasus Viceroyalty, Russian Empire • Died — 8 October 1900 • Place of death — Wellfleet, Massachusetts, US • Citizenship — * British (from 1928) • American (from 1946) • Children — * Ivan Chermayeff • Peter Chermayeff

Chermayeff was born Sergius Ivanovich Issakovitch on 8 October 1900 in Grozny, Caucasus Viceroyalty (present-day Chechnya, Russia) to Ivan Akimovitch Issakovitch (died 1924), a banker and landowner, and Rose Issakovitch (née Sonnschein). Chermayeff grew up in a wealthy Jewish family, potentially of Sephardic Jewish descent. Initially educated by a governess alongside his elder sister, Chermayeff was sent to England in 1910 to be educated at Peterborough Lodge School and later at Harrow School. Chermayeff was awarded a place at Trinity College but did not attend.

From 1922 to 1925, he received training at various schools in Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands. During this period, he supported himself as a journalist for the Amalgamated Press (1918–23) before becoming chief designer (1924–27) at E. Williams, a decorating firm. He changed his name to Serge Chermayeff in 1924 after the death of his father. In 1928, Chermayeff and the French designer Paul Follot were placed in charge of the decorative arts department of Waring & Gillow.

After practicing architecture for three years, he and the German architect Erich Mendelsohn briefly partnered in 1933 to form their own architectural firm. They created important works in the British modernist movement, notably the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, East Sussex, Cohen House, London, and Shrubs Wood (formerly Nimmo House) in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. He was also responsible for Shann House in Rugby, Warwickshire, and Gilbey House, an office and factory complex in Camden for gin distillers Gilbey's. These are all now Listed Buildings, being designated Grade I (De La Warr), Grade II* (Cohen House, Shann House, and Shrubs Wood) and Grade II (Gilbey House) respectively. Both Mendelsohn and Chermayeff were members of the MARS Group. He also designed Bentley Wood, a Modernist house in a rural location in the Low Weald in Sussex, completed in 1938. Bentley Wood was Chermayeff's personal residence, designed for himself and his family, although he was forced to sell it only a few years later. The house quickly reached a wide acclaim within architecture circles, with Charles Herbert Reilly calling it 'a regular 'Rolls-Royce of a house' in the Architects' Journal, and James Maude Richards featuring it in his 1940 book An Introduction to Modern Architecture. During the 1930s, Chermayeff designed bakelite radio cabinets for the Southend-on-Sea based company EKCO and taught at European Mediterranean Academy in Cavaliere, France.

In 1940, Chermayeff emigrated to the United States where he joined Clarence W. W. Mayhew as associate architect, helping Mayhew design his own residence. Chermayeff taught in 1940 and 1941 at the California School of Fine Arts before moving to Brooklyn College, where he served as chair of the department of design until 1946. From 1941 until his death, he maintained his principal residence on Cape Cod at Wellfleet, Massachusetts. In 1946, he was recommended by Walter Gropius to become the president of the Institute of Design in Chicago; there, he was a close friend and mentor to graphic designer Robert Brownjohn. Beginning in 1949, he oversaw the Institute's merger with the Illinois Institute of Technology before ultimately stepping down in 1951. After teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a year, he served as a professor and chair of the architecture department at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (1953–1962) and the Yale University School of Architecture (1962–1971). Following his retirement, he briefly taught at Harvard again in 1974.

On 22 March 1928, Chermayeff married Barbara Maitland May (1904–2000). The couple had two sons, the graphic designer and artist Ivan Chermayeff and the architect Peter Chermayeff. Chermayeff was the grandfather Sam Chermayeff, an architect and furniture designer, and Maro Chermayeff, a documentary producer. Chermayeff became a British citizen in 1928, and an American citizen in 1946. On 8 May 1996 Chermayeff died at his home in Wellfleet, aged 95.

The canonical record carries the following identifying particulars.