Don Wallance was an American industrial designer whose work helped redefine the place of stainless steel at the modern table. Trained at the Design Laboratory School in New York, where Bauhaus ideas shaped a new generation of American designers, Wallance became interested in the point where craftsmanship, industrial production and everyday objects could meet. His career moved between furniture, public seating and tableware, but cutlery became one of his most enduring fields of experimentation. From the early 1950s, Wallance developed a series of stainless-steel flatware designs in which comfort, manufacturing technique and sculptural form were treated as one problem. His 1953 Design One was highly sculptural and deliberately modern; later collections continued this exploration of how an object could feel both industrial and sensuous in the hand. For Stelton’s Norstaal range, he designed Aztec in 1965 and Magnum in 1968. Magnum is defined by generous concave curves and an elliptical handle language conceived both for practical use and for the silhouette the cutlery creates on the table.

“Forms that are both pleasant to look at and to hold in the hand.” — Don Wallance

Don Wallance