Feb 19, 2018
Hugh Hefner passed away last year after decades at the helm of Playboy magazine, the first mainstream magazine featuring nude centerfolds that depending on your point of view, liberated women, demeaned women, or both. But you may not know that for nearly 20 years, Playboy promoted Modernist design like no other publication. Features on Frank Lloyd Wright, Bucky Fuller, Mies Van Der Rohe, Charles Eames, and others influenced a generation.
Professor Beatriz Colomina is Director of PhD Graduate Studies at Princeton University's School of Architecture. Her books include Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, awarded the 1995 International Book Award by the AIA; Sexuality and Space awarded the 1993 AIA International Book Award; She also had an essay published in the book The Sex of Architecture. In 2016, her exhibition Playboy Magazine and the Architecture of Seduction highlighted the magazine’s role in popularizing Modernism.
Originally from New Zealand, Sandra Costa was a Playboy bunny in Miami and Los Angeles from 1967 to 1974. Soon she was known as the Kiwi bunny. She’s a well-known celebrity designer and founder of the Sandra Costa Design Group, providing custom interior design and remodeling - an award-winning furniture designer and a grandmother of three.