Knoll: Modern for All Time
With a distinct modern sensibility and an eye set firmly on a more sustainable future, Knoll is home to some of history’s most iconic mid-century modern designs. From furniture to lighting and textiles, Knoll’s clean manufacturing practices produce well-designed, forward-thinking objects with the intention to promote well-being at home and at work, always complementing the interior spaces in which they’re placed. The living legacy of the brand, founded by Hans and Florence Knoll in 1938, is one of craftsmanship, color and technology. Combining Bauhaus principles with cutting-edge color theory and a holistic approach to design, products by Knoll transcend style and time, becoming heirloom pieces that last through generations, adapting from one era to the next with ease.
Knoll: Modern for All Time
With a distinct modern sensibility and an eye set firmly on a more sustainable future, Knoll is home to some of history’s most iconic mid-century modern designs. From furniture to lighting and textiles, Knoll’s clean manufacturing practices produce well-designed, forward-thinking objects with the intention to promote well-being at home and at work, always complementing the interior spaces in which they’re placed. The living legacy of the brand, founded by Hans and Florence Knoll in 1938, is one of craftsmanship, color and technology. Combining Bauhaus principles with cutting-edge color theory and a holistic approach to design, products by Knoll transcend style and time, becoming heirloom pieces that last through generations, adapting from one era to the next with ease.
Celebrating Lilly Reich,
Co-Designer of the Barcelona Chair
A pioneer of tubular design, an expert embroiderer and Bauhaus master, Lilly Reich has recently added a new title to her pedigree: co-designer of the renowned Barcelona Chair. The iconic steel and leather chair has long been attributed solely to legendary German designer and architect, Mies van der Rohe, and in a story all-too-familiar for women designers, Reich’s contribution was passed over in favor of recognition for her male counterpart. And yet, new historic evidence suggests that Reich not only co-designed the chair but was the primary designer of the entire Barcelona Pavilion with van der Rohe for the 1929 World Exhibition in Barcelona. Just short of a century later, it is high time the name Lilly Reich takes its belated yet proper place in the cast of influential, innovative designers of the German modernist movement.
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The Woman Behind the Brand:
Florence Knoll
Co-founder of the Knoll brand, the work of Florence Knoll remains at the very heart of modern design’s enduring influence. Paving the way for interior design as we know it today, Knoll pioneered the concept of “total design,” using the brand’s Planning Unit to design homes and offices from start to finish, each element—from exterior to interior—in harmony with the next. A historically collaborative brand, it was through Knoll’s early relationships with stalwart designers of mid-century modernism like Eero Saarinen, a close friend throughout her studies at the Cranbrook Academy, and Mies van der Rohe, her teacher at the Illinois Institute for Technology, that she successfully created a bridge to carry the ideas of European and Bauhaus-influenced modernism to America, ushering in one of the most popular movements of design of all time, and leading the Knoll brand to become the powerhouse of modern design that it remains today.
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