Dezeen Wire: Terence Conran turns 80 on 4 October and a major retrospective of Conran's career opens at the Design Museum on 16 November.

A season of events celebrating his life and work will be launched with an evening at Tate Modern on Tuesday 20 September featuring a panel discussion with Stephen Bayley, Christopher Frayling and Fiona MacCarthy. 

Here is some more information from the Design Museum:

SIR TERENCE CONRAN’S 80TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

The Way We Live Now, a season of events, celebrating Sir Terence Conran’s 80th birthday, will be launched with an evening at Tate Modern on Tuesday 20 September 2011, featuring a panel discussion with Stephen Bayley, Christopher Frayling and Fiona MacCarthy

Sir Terence Conran celebrates his 80th birthday on 4 October this year. A major retrospective exhibition exploring his unique impact on contemporary life in Britain will go on show at the Design Museum from 16 November 2011 – 4 March 2012. Through his own design work, and also through his entrepreneurial flair, Conran has transformed the British way of life. The Way We Live Now examines Conran’s impact and legacy, whilst also showing his design approach and inspirations. The exhibition traces his career from post-war austerity through to the new sensibility of the Festival of Britain in the 1950s, the birth of the Independent Group and the Pop Culture of the 1960s, to the design boom of the 1980s and on to the present day. The exhibition is curated by Stafford Cliff and Deyan Sudjic.

Sir Terence’s donation to the new development of the Design Museum of a cash gift of £7.5m and the value of the sale of the lease of the current Design Museum building at Shad Thames valued in the region of £10m was announced in June 2011. The Design Museum plans to relocate from its current home at Shad Thames to the former Commonwealth Institute building, giving it three times more space in which to show a wider range of exhibitions, showcase its world-class collection and extend its learning programme.

Sir Terence Conran is one of the world’s best-known designers, restaurateurs and retailers. Born in 1931, he founded the Conran Design Studio in 1956 and later the Habitat chain of home furnishings stores that revolutionised the UK High Street in the 1960s and 1970s by bringing intelligent, modern design within reach of the general population. In the 1980s Habitat was expanded and following a series of acquisitions evolved into Storehouse plc, of which he retired as Chairman in 1990. Today he is the Chairman of Conran Holdings, a design group with restaurants, shops and an architecture and design practice operating all over the world. He has been Provost of the Royal College of Art since 2003.

In 1982 he established the forerunner of the Design Museum, the Boilerhouse, in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The success of this project led to the opening of the Design Museum in 1989 at its current location in Shad Thames. Over the years the Conran Foundation has donated approximately £50m to the Design Museum and Boilerhouse projects.

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