Mark Wilkinson (designer)

Mark Wilkinson OBE, OLM (born 25 October 1950) is a British designer recognised by many as the era’s leading designer of fine British furniture. Mark Wilkinson is the founding designer of two of the country’s best known kitchen design, manufacture and supply businesses, Mark Wilkinson Furniture and Smallbone of Devizes.

He is a visiting lecturer in Design Creativity, at the University of the West of England (UWE) and also contributes to the design teaching at the Rotherham College of Arts and Technology, Rycotewood College, and the Chelsea based KLC Design School.

Career

Mark is recognised academically as the man who, in 1976, created the English Country Kitchen, which, in the words of Tod Burton, Creative Product Design director at the University of the West of England, "focused on the ‘Social’ aspect of kitchen design rather than on ‘Work’ aspect".

Mark’s design, brought ‘heart’ and ‘humanity of style’ to European kitchens previously dominated by the ‘engineering and efficiency-centred’ Germanic styling typified by, and taking its roots from the Frankfurt Kitchen, designed by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926.’ Mark also insists that his furniture exhibits the highest possible quality of build with an unprecedented degree of originality and nobility.

Although his own academic achievement was stunted by dyslexia, he is now a member of Mensa. He designs many different products, from clothing, to houses, to objets d’art but it is furniture that is his first love and which he is best known for.

Typical Mark Wilkinson clients would be industry leaders, society figures, celebrities, sports stars and top chefs, like Antony Worrall Thompson and Gary Rhodes. He has been described by Eliot Nusbaum, writing in the Sunday Times, as the ‘Mozart of Kitchen Cabinet Makers’ while the Editor of the key publication for interior designers and product designers, idFX, called him the ‘Finest Designer of our Time’. Mark is highly respected in the kitchen industry, being the only industry member to have been awarded its two most prestigious awards, the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, and the T at the industry awards ceremony in 2007.

His furniture too is award winning, every range carrying the Guild Mark of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers, while the company that bears his name was awarded the highly prestigious Employer of the Year Award for the work it has been doing over the past ten years in providing Apprenticeships for young Furniture Makers.^[1] The apprenticeship scheme saw Wilkinson working with the local Wiltshire College to adapt an existing course to suite the specific needs of cabinet making.

In 2008, he opened a showroom in New York City.^[2]

Mark writes regularly for publications covering Design and the Kitchen and he is a Judge of Awards for the design industry – the Royal Society of Arts’ Student Design Awards - and the kitchen industry – the Kitchen & Bathroom design awards. He is himself a skilful cook, a fact that reflects in many of the practical aspects of his furniture designs and the regularly cookery column he writes in Flavours Magazine.

His charitable work is manifest, he is severely dyslexic and has developed a special interest in teaching children and young people, who have learning difficulties, most recently he has spoken to Young Offenders with Dyslexia at the Ashfield Prison in Bristol and taken the role of the Project Patron for the creation of an Arts Therapy Centre, at Rowdeford School, situated in Wiltshire, close to Wilkinson’s home village of Bromham.

Awards

He was honoured by the Queen, with an OBE for services to the Furniture Industry and to Charity in the 2010 New Year’s Honours.

Wilkinson is a Founding Fellow of The Society of British Interior Design (SBID); a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA),^[3] Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers (FCSD) and Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute (FCGI).^[4]

In 2010, Mark was awarded the Medal of the Order of the League of Mercy (OLM) at a ceremony held at The Mansion House, in the City of London. The Medal, awarded for his support of the specialist teaching charity Dyslexia Action, was presented by the chairman of the League of Mercy, and Knight Principle, Lord Lingfield in the presence of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of the City of London.

References

External links

• Mark Wilkinson Furniture website