László, Paul
Paul László, Hungarian architect, interior and product designer, was born László Pál in Debrecen, Hungary, served with the Hungarian Army in World War I, completed his education in Vienna, Austria, then moved to Stuttgart Germany where he established himself as a prominent designer. In 1936 his Jewish ancestry made his position precarious, and he emigrated to the U.S. to escape the Nazis. He established an architectural and interior design office at 362 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and became popular with movie stars well into the 1960s, designing uniformly simple, but never simplistic, interiors, furniture, fabrics, lamps and rugs. He served domestically in the U.S. Army in World War II, and designed an elegant bomb shelter for the U.S. Air Force. From 1948 until 1952, he designed influential furniture for the Herman Miller Company, and his studio in Los Angeles continued to design interiors for department stores such as Saks, Robinson’s, Hudson’s Bay and Bullock’s, as well as hotel casino interiors in Las Vegas. Time magazine in 1952 described him as “the Millionaire’s Architect.”