If you don’t know who Florence Knoll is, shame on you. (And shame on some of us, frankly).
Florence Knoll would have turned 100 years old this year. Obviously, the Knoll name in our industry is synonymous not only with the very beginnings of modernist commercial furniture, but also the principles of American office design. She was the preeminent leader of that movement, and her story starts with the company’s namesake.
RISE OF THE KNOLL EMPIRE
German-born Hans Knoll brought his father’s brand of modern furniture design to the United States and founded the Hans Knoll Furniture Company in 1941. Florence Schust, a Michigan native and early enthusiast of European architecture was already on a parallel path. She had attended the School of Architecture at Columbia University and later the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where she studied under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.
The careers of Knoll and Schust would intersect in 1943 when Schust was hired to expand the company’s brand by collaborating with architects and introducing the untapped field of integrated interior design. The two married in 1946, and Florence became a full partner in the newly-minted Knoll Associates.
FROM MICHIGAN TO MAD MEN
She was a creative engine in all respects for the Knoll company where she would gain international acclaim as an architect, furniture designer, and office designer during the corporate boom of the 1960s. Her open-plan designs would revolutionize how American offices would do business. Indeed, both her designs and principles were often the subject of exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art, and her timeless creative appeal would later reach Hollywood in the scrupulously accurate office sets of TV’s Mad Men.
Always the fearless advocate of “total design,” Florence Knoll once stated, “I needed a piece of furniture. It was not there, so I designed it.” All of us in the architecture and design community owe a debt of gratitude to Knoll and her seminal practice of integrated design, the principles of which we follow today.
German-born Hans Knoll brought his father’s brand of modern furniture design to the United States and founded the Hans Knoll Furniture Company in 1941. Florence Schust, a Michigan native and early enthusiast of European architecture was already on a parallel path. She had attended the School of Architecture at Columbia University and later the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where she studied under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.
The careers of Knoll and Schust would intersect in 1943 when Schust was hired to expand the company’s brand by collaborating with architects and introducing the untapped field of integrated interior design. The two married in 1946, and Florence became a full partner in the newly-minted Knoll Associates.
FROM MICHIGAN TO MAD MEN
She was a creative engine in all respects for the Knoll company where she would gain international acclaim as an architect, furniture designer, and office designer during the corporate boom of the 1960s. Her open-plan designs would revolutionize how American offices would do business. Indeed, both her designs and principles were often the subject of exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art, and her timeless creative appeal would later reach Hollywood in the scrupulously accurate office sets of TV’s Mad Men.
Always the fearless advocate of “total design,” Florence Knoll once stated, “I needed a piece of furniture. It was not there, so I designed it.” All of us in the architecture and design community owe a debt of gratitude to Knoll and her seminal practice of integrated design, the principles of which we follow today.