The Gospel According to Jan

It’s no accident that the institute was created in the Twin Cities—or that it has flourished here. “We’re talking about the place where the Walker is, where Target is, and 3M, and where all these major companies that really make the history of industrial design are located,” says Paola Antonelli, curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. “So Jan has a lot of great material to work with. But I think that the kind of collaborations that she established with these companies really contributed to putting the Design Institute on the map.”

Headquartered in an airy space in Northrop Auditorium, the Design Institute is decorated with Blu Dot furniture and posters created for its conferences and classes. Down the hall, Jan Abrams’s office is its command center.

Her personal workspace can be described as organized chaos. One wall holds a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf overflowing with printed matter, running the gamut from books on political philosophy to programs from some of the many conferences she’s chaired. Stacks of magazines, posters, and other materials cover the floor perimeter and every elevated surface. “My office is overwhelming,” she concedes, “but I know where everything is.” When she wants to show you a journal citation, she springs off her chair before you know what she’s looking for and finds it at once.

It’s here where she writes grant proposals, helps define fellows’ proposals, and persuades industry leaders from around the world to come to Minnesota and speak at a conference or teach at Design Camp for a nominal fee. “Jan has an amazing list of contacts,” says MOMA’s Antonelli. “When you get an e-mail from her, even if it’s an e-mail sent to an enormous number of people, you don’t discount it. You see what she has to say.”

When she’s not at the office, speaking at a design summit, or visiting her family in England, Abrams is renovating her Prospect Park home—a 1941 gem that she affectionately says is of the “California–Prairie School–Moderne” style. It’s the quirky home of a quirky owner. From each corner of the two-story structure the opposite corner is visible. The front door has a porthole that complements the nautical pipelike railing leading up to the front stoop. In the living room, Abrams prominently displays her collection of about sixty laundry-detergent boxes, which she describes as “varied and colorful—great examples of typographic exuberance.”