About That New Year’s Card…

This year, we sent out a holiday card with a bit of a twist—Nextstage Design impersonated five Pritzker laureates and invited you to guess who you thought we were pretending to be. We received a lot of guesses, and some of them were outrageous! Here’s the list of our alter egos, and your guesses: 

1. Tony Forman – Philip Johnson

Some of you guessed Le Corbusier, which is a very good guess. The key differences here are the tie, a thin modern number instead of Corbu’s classic bowtie or ascot, the lack of a pocket square, and the fact that Corbu is not a Pritzker laureate!

2. Gene Leitermann – Thom Mayne (not I.M Pei, Toyo Ito, and please not Richard Meier).

Gene proved the hardest to guess—maybe because all architects dress alike, but probably because not all photos of Thom Mayne look like alike.

3. Matt Welander – Gordon Bunshaft

If you weren’t going to guess The Inspector or Sherlock Holmes, this one was a dead ringer. In fact, nearly everyone got it right.

4. Erich Bolton – Christian de Portzamparc

Who knew Erich looks just like (young) Portzamparc when he takes his glasses off? We were shocked. He wore all his regular clothes to the photo shoot and everything. We barely touched his hair.

5. NJ Ollsten – Carme Pigem (not Toyo Ito nor I.M. Pei neither)

Pigem is shown in every photograph with a giant smile, a turtleneck and a cardigan. Kudos to everyone who got this right—NJ and Carme look nothing alike, but they tried their best to check all the boxes for a successful impression.