At this year’s Interior Awards, the first ever Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Nanette Cameron. With several decades of work behind her and the creation of one of New Zealand’s first courses in interior design, which bears her name, she has undoubtedly changed the face of design in this country.

Cameron was a founding member of the Designers Institute of New Zealand, and the Nanette Cameron School of Interior Design, now run out of Te Tuhi in Pakuranga, began in 1967. With such an incredible legacy, the jury thought that she was the perfect recipient for the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2019 Interior Awards.

Full jury citation:

Much can be said for an individual who, by their own merit, has had an institution named after them. Nanette Cameron – whose moniker helps form The Nanette Cameron School of Interior Design – is one such person. Cameron’s prowess as an interior designer and educator has seen her work take on something of a legendary status, as if mythologised under the sheer weight of her enduring influence. Since she began her career in the 1950s, Cameron has inspired and helped define New Zealand’s interior design via both her school and her renowned body of work. Her Glenmore Road home in Pakuranga, for instance, “suggested playfulness from top to toe”, as written in the 2013 book Nanette Cameron: Interior Design Legend, and embodied her infectious passion and unrelenting curiosity for new ways of approaching design. For her work as a true icon of New Zealand design, Nanette is an ideal recipient of the Interior Awards’ inaugural, Lifetime Achievement Award.

See the full list of winners from the 2019 Interior Awards here.

Purchase your copy of the June 2019 issue of Interior magazine here for extended Awards coverage.

With thanks to our 2019 sponsors: