Lella Vignelli was born in Udine, Italy. She received a degree from the School of Architecture, University of Venice, and became a registered architect in Milan in 1962. In 1958, she received a tuition fellowship as a special student at the School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. In 1959, Ms. Vignelli joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Chicago, as junior designer in the interiors department. The following year, with Massimo Vignelli, she established the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. In 1965, she became head of the interiors department for Unimark International Corporation in Milan and in New York (1966). Ms. Vignelli's work is widely featured in design publications in the United States and abroad. Examples of her work have been included in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Montreal, and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich. Ms. Vignelli has been the recipient of many awards including Honorary Doctorates from the Parsons School of Design, New York and the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C.; the AIA Industrial Arts Medal, 1973; AIGA Gold Medal, 1983; Interior Design Hall of Fame, 1988; National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design, 1991; Interior Product Designers Fellowship of Excellence, 1992; The Brooklyn Museum Design Award for Lifetime Achievement, 1995.