| THE HISTORY OF FORMICA CORPORATION |
The Eighties: The Art of Formica
With the debut of ColorCore in 1982, the image of Formica Corporation and its products again began to change. A laminate with solid color throughout, ColorCore eliminated dark lines at seams and corners, offering a look of pure plasticity that fit perfectly with the look of postmodern design – brightly colored, ornamented and eccentrically shaped. Formica Corporation began to look for ways to encourage architects and designers to experiment with ColorCore. The idea of a museum exhibition was proposed.
Formica Corporation issued an invitation to designers, architects and artists to explore the material potential of ColorCore, inspiring a prolific expression of creativity that became three Formica-sponsored traveling exhibitions. The first, “Surface & Ornament,” was devoted to architectural and interior furnishings; the second, “Material Evidence: New Color Techniques in Handmade Furniture,” focused on unique applications of laminate by craftspeople; the third, “Surface and Edge,” invited jewelers to work with ColorCore as a decorative element.
The New York Times hailed “Surface and Ornament” as the “benchmark of all design competitions.” Comprising works by the most influential and innovative designers of the day, the resulting exhibition traveled from major museums in the United States to Mexico City, London, Paris, Milan and the Far East before returning to the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. The ten invited entrants demonstrated the extraordinary pluralism within American design: Frank O. Gehry, James Wines and Alison Sky of SITE, Emilio Ambasz, Helmut Jahn, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Milton Glaser, Ward Bennett, Robert Venturi and Charles Moore each contributed conceptual objects now considered emblematic of the 1980s.
The “designer decade” injected new vitality into American product design and Formica Corporation again revised its Solid Color line, as well as re-coloring popular patterns like Skylark – renamed “Boomerang.” But despite trends in color, pattern and texture, sales for 1989 reflect a preference for the classics: White, Almond, Folkstone (gray) and Black were the top selling colors.
During the mid-1980’s, the Company developed Surell, a solid surfacing product designed to compete with DuPont’s Corian. A smooth translucent material, Surrell lent itself to carving and polishing and again, a design competition was devised to tap into its material qualities. The resulting exhibit, “From Table to Tablescape” traveled to major U.S. cities and individual pieces became part of the permanent collections of such museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Along with new design trends, Formica Corporation as a company continued to evolve. In 1985, a group led by management and Shearson Lehman purchased the company from American Cyanamid in a management buyout. Vincent P. Langone was named President and Chief Operating Officer. By 1987, Formica again became a publicly traded company and in 1988, Langone was appointed Chief Executive Officer. Formica Corporation remained public until 1989, when management decided to take the company private.
Although Formica began export to the Far East in the 1970’s, architects and designers so loved the brand that local manufacturing facilities were needed to support Asian markets. Formica Corporation opened an HPL plant in Taiwan in 1980 and new markets were opened in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia during the 1980’s and early 90’s. As China’s economy began to grow, Formica set up Formica Shanghai (1994) and in 2005, built a brand new plant to support the demand for Formica products. With the Perstorp acquisition in 2000, Formica was established in Thailand to support the emerging Asian markets.
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