Margo Grant Walsh is an American interior designer also known as a collector of silver serving pieces. As a designer of workplaces, first for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and later for Gensler, her clients included companies such as Goldman Sachs, Pennzoil, and Shearman & Sterling. Grant was inducted into the Interior Design magazineHall of Fame in 1987, and has been described by the IIDA as "one of the most powerful and influential women in American architecture and interior design", and a pioneer for both women in the field and the profession itself. Grant began her career in the San Francisco office of design firmSkidmore, Owings & Merrill, at the time the world's largest architecture firm, where she quickly rose through the ranks to become the top executive in the firm's growing interiors practice. She later took a position with Gensler and Associates in 1973, eventually becoming one of its vice presidents. Since retirement in 2004, Walsh has spent her time curating her extensive silver collection.
Post-graduation, Walsh went to work for the Herman Miller furnishing and furniture design firm, where she met Alexis Yermakov who was then setting up the interior design department of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's San Francisco office. Yermakov recruited her to work at SOM. While there, she worked closely with Davis Allen, then head of SOM interior architecture and design. One of their notable collaborative projects was the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel Hawaii. Walsh spent thirteen years at SOM in San Francisco, eventually becoming associate director of interior design. Initially the firm's partners were hesitant to pursue interiors design and architecture projects as a separate practice and only sought to do such work in buildings designed by SOM. Walsh is credited with convincing them to more aggressively market their interiors studio.
Gensler and Associates
In 1973 Walsh took a position at Gensler and Associates. When she first spoke with Art Gensler, the firm, which eventually became the largest interiors firm in the world, only had three employees. She became Director of Interior Design in their Houston office with a staff of 35. In 1979 she opened Gensler's New York City offices, where she was promoted to managing principal of the eastern region division. Later, she opened offices in Washington D.C. and Boston, as well as London in 1988. Before leaving Gensler in 2004, Ms. Walsh became one of four on the board of directors, and the company had grown to a staff of nearly 2,000 by the time of her departure.
Interior Architecture/Design Projects
Marine Midland Bank Building was completed in 1967 as one of her earliest projects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Walsh's most notable project of her early career at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the 1969 construction of the Bank of America headquarters in San Francisco.
While in Houston, TX with Gensler and Associates, Walsh designed the interior of Pennzoil Place.
Silver Collection
After her retirement from Gensler in 2004, Walsh focused on her collection of twentieth century silver and metalware, which she started in 1981. With over 800 pieces, it includes silverware, serving dishes, trays, jewelry objets de vertu from the United States, England, Mexico, and Europe. It is one of the largest such collections in private hands in the world. Walsh's "Collecting by Design" exhibition displayed over 450 pieces in 40 showcases and has been featured in 11 museum exhibitions since 2002, in locations from New York to San Francisco.
In 2002 the University of Oregon awarded Margo Grant Walsh the Ellis F. Lawrence Medal – the highest honor of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.
