Angelo Donghia

Angelo Donghia (1935–1985) was an American interior designer.

Donghia was born in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, on 7 March 1935. He grew up spending time at his father’s tailoring shop which is where his appreciation for design grew and developed. He realized his calling at a young age and by the time he turned 11 his father had granted him his first decorating job at the tailoring shop, for which Angelo Donghia would recall “The result was perhaps liked by some and hated by others, but that didn’t bother me. What mattered was that I had made something which was really the way I saw it and felt it.”

He left for New York City to study interior design at Parsons School of Design when he was 18 years old. After graduation Mr. Donghia joined the firm of Yale Burge Interiors, where Burge became his mentor and helped him hone his craft and develop a personal style. In 1966, on the recommendation of Billy Baldwin (interior designer), Mr. Donghia designed the Metropolitan Opera Club room at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center which, with silver foil ceilings, blue chandeliers and black upholstery, was met with great acclaim. He was soon made partner of the design firm, then renamed Burge-Donghia.

At the time of his death on April 10, 1985, the New York-based Donghia Companies included five branches: Donghia Associates, Donghia Furniture, Donghia Textiles, Donghia Showrooms and Donghia Licensing.

Donghia was also one of the first in his field to realize the importance of extending his point of view to mass-market products. Donghia said: "I knew that what I had wasn't enough and that my growth had to be through means which weren’t the decorating business." By 1968 Mr. Donghia was already expanding with the establishment of &Vice Versa, a to-the-trade collection and showroom of fabrics and wallcoverings (later to become Donghia Textiles) originally inspired by the designs of friend Seymour Avigdor. Licensing his name and designs played a major role in Angelo Donghia’s success and, concurrently with his interior design work, he began designing a number of products including an award-winning sheet and towel collection for J.P. Stevens, an affordable furniture collection for Kroehler, and coordinated dinner and barware for Toscany Imports Ltd.

After Yale Burge died in 1972, Burge-Donghia was renamed Donghia Associates and served the areas of residential, contract and hospitality interior design. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Mr. Donghia’s client list grew to include major corporations, cultural institutions, mass manufacturers, as well as a number of celebrities. Projects included the S.S Norway, the Omni International Hotels in Miami and Atlanta, and the St. Andrews Country Club in Florida, while Ralph Lauren, Halston, Donald Trump, Barbara Walters, Mary Tyler Moore, Liza Minnelli, Neil Simon, Grace Mirabella and Diana Ross were amongst his celebrity clientele.

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