ABSTRACT
Dinah Casson and Roger Mann created an ice cream shop that became a place of pilgrimage. The ice cream shop lent itself wholeheartedly to a Postmodernist interpretation but with a palette less North American Disney and more Italian Memphis. Walls were horizontally striped in shades of grey, inspired by the walls of Tuscan churches and, perhaps, by the layering of Neapolitan ice cream. Gran Gelato was the only shop Casson and Mann ever designed. Their next influential project, in 1988, was for the headquarters of the Chartered Society of Designers in Bloomsbury, and also provoked excitement when published in Designers’ Journal. Their next important project, in 1989, was for the headquarters in Belgravia of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. This followed more conventional processes but confirmed an early awareness of sustainability. They received a series of office projects through a contact in the office fit-out sector but, apart from reception areas, these offered limited opportunities.
