Jon Bannenberg

Jon Bannenberg: A Life of Design (Julian Calder Publishing, 2015. Author: Dickie Bannenberg)

Jon Bannenberg, RDI (1929 – 26 May 2002) was an Australian-English yacht designer.

Bannenberg died of an inoperable Brain tumour at his home in London on 26 May 2002.

He was appointed a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 1978, the first yacht designer to be so honoured since Charles E. Nicholson in 1934.

His profile continued to rise and, in 1965, he was selected by Cunard as one of the interior designers for their new liner—known initially as Q4, but later to be the Queen Elizabeth 2—under construction at the John Brown Shipyard in Glasgow. Bannenberg was allocated to design the Double Room, the Card Room, and some of the First Class suites. His first yacht commission was the sailing yacht Tiawana, built by the Camper & Nicholsons in Southampton and delivered in 1968. Shortly thereafter, he was commissioned to design a large motor yacht, Carinthia V, by German retail magnate Helmut Horten. She was shortly followed by the almost identical Carinthia VI, described as an icon of 20th century yacht design. In a career, which was to extend a further thirty years, Bannenberg designed almost two hundred yacht projects, as well as working on residential projects, aircraft interiors, car interiors, furniture design and hotels.

Bannenberg was born in Sydney, Australia, and educated at Canterbury Boys High School and later at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In the early 1950s, he moved to London, by way of New Zealand and the Pitcairn Islands, during which time he worked briefly for Ngaio Marsh's theatre company. From initially earning a living by playing the piano in bars and clubs (he was briefly Noël Coward's rehearsal pianist), he developed an interest in design, establishing the fledgling Marble & Lemon decorative arts business in Cheval Place, Knightsbridge. This led to a partnership with the long-established New Bond Street dealer—Partridge Fine Arts—which began in 1957 and lasted well into the next decade. Bannenberg created the setting for the 3rd International Art Treasures exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1962—the design of which was described by The Times on 2 March 1962 as "well adapted to facilitate appreciation by the planning of its series of compartments".