John Dunnigan to receive Furniture Society's 2026/27 Award of Distinction

John Dunnigan to receive Furniture Society's 2026/27 Award of Distinction June 23, 2026 | 9:00 pm CDT

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Furniture

Woodworking Industry News

John Dunnigan to receive Furniture Society's 2026/27 Award of Distinction

By

Dakota Smith

June 23, 2026 | 9:00 pm CDT

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SYRACUSE, N.Y., The Furniture Society has named designer, educator, and writer John Dunnigan the recipient of the 2026/2027 Award of Distinction. Established in 2001, the Award of Distinction honors individuals whose work has made a lasting contribution to contemporary furniture making. To learn more about past recipients and the nomination process, visit here.

Chaired by TFS’ 2012 AoD recipient Rosanne Somerson, this year’s jury - Nora Atkinson, Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez, and Julie Lasky recognized John for his extraordinary breadth of contribution as a designer, educator, writer, and advocate for the field.

“There is no shortage of influential contributors to the field of furniture design, but in weighing candidates for the 2026, 2027 Award of Distinction, the jury agreed that one name stood out among the others: John Dunnigan," the 2026/2027 Jurors stated. 

Dunni­gan is a designer, maker, author, and educa­tor. His studio work spans fifty years, and has been shown in more than one hundred exhi­bi­tions. 

Dunnigan’s furni­ture has been featured in dozens of publi­ca­tions, such as The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Boston Globe, in cata­logues, and in books, includ­ing Edward S. Cooke’s New Amer­i­can Furni­ture (1989) and Witold Rybczynski’s Now I Sit Me Down (2016). In addi­tion to main­tain­ing his own studio prac­tice since 1975, he was a partner in DEZCO Furni­ture Design LLC (2004, 2010) and Windels Dunni­gan (2018, 2019), collab­o­ra­tions dedi­cated to sustain­able prac­tices in design for afford­able produc­tion. He has published several essays on the cultural context of furni­ture and has lectured frequently on furni­ture as an expres­sion of culture and identity.

A dedi­cated teacher, Dunni­gan was a member of the faculty at RISD for forty-five years. During the first fifteen years, he taught in the depart­ments of Inte­rior Archi­tec­ture and Indus­trial Design. In 1995, he was a co-founder of the Depart­ment of Furni­ture Design, where he had a lead­er­ship role in devel­op­ing the curricu­lum, espe­cially the Sopho­more Studio, the History of Furni­ture, and the Senior Degree Project, where he mentored many students who have gone on to success­ful careers. Dunni­gan was Depart­ment Head of Furni­ture Design for many years (2005, 08 and 2010, 17), and he served as Interim Dean of the Divi­sion of Archi­tec­ture + Design in 2008-09. He is a former Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the RISD Museum (2015, 18). Dunni­gan was the Schiller Family Endowed Chair in Furni­ture Design at RISD from 2015 until his retire­ment in 2025 when he became Professor Emeritus.

TFS will be celebrating John Dunnigan with two public events: 

October 17, 2026 at RISD: designer and podcast host Amy Devers in conversation with John. June 11, 2027 at the TFS Conference in Houston: the Award will be formally presented to John.

The Award of Distinction reflects a continuing cycle at the heart of The Furniture Society: we honor leaders whose work has shaped the field, and through the Educational Grants Program, help support the next generation of makers, students, and educators.

To learn more, visit gallerynaga.com/john-dunnigan. 

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About the author

Dakota Smith

| Assistant Editor

Dakota is an assistant editor at Woodworking Network, avidly exploring the woodworking industry.

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