Visionary designer, retailer, restaurateur and founder of the Design Museum Sir Terence Conran not only revolutionised British design, he also changed peoples’ lifestyles.
He ‘democratised good design’, bringing contemporary design to people through Habitat, the furniture store he founded in 1964 which grew to a national and international chain and The Conran Shop in 1972 with further stores in London, Paris, New York and Japan. Through his Storehouse Group, he went on to acquire Heal’s furniture stores, set up Next and ran British Home Stores and Mothercare.
Sir Terence Conran in 2011 at the opening of the exhibition “Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now” at the Design Museum in London, which he founded.
“My philosophy is best summed up by the phrase ‘plain, simple, and useful.’ Such things may not win many design prizes, but neither do they go out of fashion.”
– Sir Terence Conran
In 1989 he founded the Design Museum in London. “He is revered by generations of designers from Mary Quant and David Mellor to Thomas Heatherwick and Jonny Ive,” says current Design Museum director Tim Marlow.
For over 60 years the Conran Design Group specialised in interiors, hotel and restaurant design, graphics and homewares. Passionate about food, he founded the Conran Restaurants Group in 1991, with restaurants, hotels and bars in London, where people would gravitate to including Quaglino’s, Bluebird, Mezzo and Le Pont de la Tour.
