Long hailed as the foremost ambassadors of European design sensibilities in the American market, Luminaire founders Nasir and Nargis Kassamali have been honored with this year’s International Compasso d’Oro prize for Lifetime Achievement. The award is Italy’s highest accolade for industrial design and has been given biennially by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale since 1954. The only other American awardee of this particular honor is the late Milton Glaser, who received his Lifetime Achievement award in 2018.
Luminaire, the retail business founded by the Kassamalis in 1974 in Miami, “is not just a way of selling design; it is a narration of design,” said the awards committee in a statement, calling it “a place of experience and knowledge for a broad audience,” and “a point of reference and enhancement for the culture of Made in Italy design on the international scene.”
Nasir and Nargis have been decades-long champions of sophisticated, groundbreaking design, and while their reputation was built on their relationships with Italian manufacturers, they have supported and sold works of designers from many other countries as well. In 2015, the couple were named Metropolis Game Changers for their patronage of design.