New York Magazine
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Yesterday, at a White House luncheon, First Lady Michelle Obama bestowed Knoll with a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement—a well-deserved honor. Knoll furniture and textiles have been shaping the aesthetics of the American office since the company was founded by Hans Knoll in 1938. A recent book, Knoll, A Modernist Universe, by Brian Lutz (Rizzoli) gives a comprehensive look at this iconic company and the design legends it fostered. Here, a photograph of Knoll and his wife and partner Florence, flanked by designers Herbert Matter (left) and Harry Bertoia, in 1952.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
Today, Knoll’s New York showroom stretches over what seems to be an acre of floor space. It shows the full spectrum of the company’s offerings, ranging from classics like Eero Saarinen’s Womb chair to Harry Bertoia’s wire pieces and Frank Gehry’s woven-laminated-furniture series created in 1990.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
The Mad Men offices could have been conceived right here in the 1954 executive offices of CBS headquarters in New York.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
Knoll still recruits top design talent to produce new furniture. Here, a shared work desk with a built-in screen system by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
Uniformity was key in the offices of the day. This one was designed by Knoll for Milliken & Co. Note the ashtrays on top of each desk: You can almost smell the smoke mingling with the coffee.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
Antenna’s flexible designs for Knoll are meant to work both for stand-alone offices or open-plan cubicle farms.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
This office for an executive (or a well-off assistant) was decorated with a single sculpture by Marini on the desk. No doubt the rest of the office offered some the same crisp formality, with a Knoll couch perhaps, and a credenza for the bar.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
Ergonomics play an ever-increasing role in the design of office furniture, as we are now all strapped to computers. Formway Design devised the Generation chair in 2006; though it has an almost comic-book look, it is seriously good for movement and posture.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
It’s interesting to note how firmly planted the conference chairs are here, just like the buttoned-up executives who occupied them. Once you took your seat, you were there to stay.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
Don’t you yearn for the elegant simplicity of this office, with its Florence Knoll Table Desk and Saarinen chair and the 255 BRNO chair by Mies van der Rohe in the right-hand corner? A delicate Bertoia sculpture sits on the credenza in back.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Courtesy of Knoll
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
