Bruce Burdick
Bruce Burdick (1933-2021) was an American designer and founder of the Burdick Group. He is known for The Burdick Group modular desk system, and designing various museum exhibits around the world, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exhibit space. Biography. Bruce Burdick grew up in Pasadena, California and studied at the University of Southern California and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. During his time at U.S.C. he interned at the Eames Office in Los Angeles. The work of Charles and Ray Eames was an inspiration to him throughout his career. After graduating  from Art Center in 1961 he worked in the Los Angeles design firms of John Follis and Herb Rosenthal. He founded the department of Environmental Design at the Art Center College of Design in 1971 and directed it through 1975. While there he served as the client liaison for the design and construction of Craig Ellwood's canyon-spanning Bridge Building. In 1970 he founded the Burdick Group design firm in Los Angeles. Throughout his career Burdick spoke up for industrial design: "Designers are involved with life: we touch everything! Ninety per cent of everyone's day is spent using  the things we've made, yet the public is only aware of fashion designers and architects." In 1975 the Burdick Group moved to San Francisco. The Burdick Group's first major exhibition opened in 1976: "Food for Life," a permanent exhibition on nutrition for the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Via computers, visitors related exhibit content to their own health. From this first exhibit onward Burdick strove to engage visitors with computer interactions. At that time "computer" meant mainframe. Burdick took a course in computer literacy at Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science to understand how computers might turn  a visitor's passive experience into an active one. In 1980, Burdick purchased a former piano warehouse at 35 South Park, San Francisco. The building accommodated a changing cast of employees and a shop where models and prototypes were built. In that same year, Burdick designed the Burdick Group desk for Herman Miller. Supported by aluminum beams and pedestals, the components can be rearranged to put tools and resources within easy reach. As Burdick put it, "What I wanted was a desk that was responsive to the way an individual works . . . a desk that a designer could specify for 20  different people, with each one being different." "Time" magazine reporter Wolf van Eckardt pronounced it one of the five best industrial designs of 1981. It was Gordon Gecko's desk in the 1987 film Wall Street. In 1983 Burdick married Susan K. Burdick, who became his design and business partner. In 2000 the Burdicks dissolved their firm and dedicated themselves to serious travel. They split their time between a home in San Francisco and a house they designed with longtime associate Bruce Lightbody at Sea Ranch on the California coast. A retrospective article in "Graphis" includes 20 pages of Burdick  project photos.