About Georgia

Background

Originally from Chicago, Georgia developed an appetite for architecture at an early age, long before she knew what architecture was. Having the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Field Museum merely a long bus ride from home, she and her brother (who became an aircraft engineer and was one of the members of the elite Skunk Works at Lockheed) visited these vast storehouses of beauty, function, and history several times a year.

Later, after marrying the soon-to-become Dr. Mannfred A. Hollinger, courtesy of Georgia and grants, she worked at ITT Bell & Gosset, which manufactured hydronic pumps for industry and homes worldwide.

Experience

Working on a marketing and advertising team, Georgia soon understood that she would have to know something about what the engineers were doing to market the products being marketed—this became one of the key mediums of education for her.

She learned how buildings had to be put together to accommodate their purpose. So, despite not having the education in architecture and anthropology she had hoped for, she learned from the engineers she worked with at ITT Bell & Gossett how to read blueprints. So she got much of the educational material on the job.

Marketing and advertising require an eye for how words, pictures, and photographs look on a page, as well as an eye for color. Not many people have a literal “eye for color,” which means being able to see and remember more color than most people. Georgia was nearly 30 years old before she learned she had this precious gift.

Georgia and her husband’s various homes throughout her husband’s education included:

A basement apartment she furnished “on a dime,” which later was subleased to the new tenants being allowed to purchase the furnishings entirely.
A trailer of the same model as in the “Long, Long, Trailer” with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, where she tore and replaced all of the fluorescent lighting out of the walls, re-tiled the kitchen and bath in light grey, and painted the metal cabinets dark brown, creating a pleasant place to live in, despite being very cozy and cheap.