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Knoll International - at that time Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company - was founded in 1938 by Hans Knoll, who, as the son of Walter Knoll, had grown up with a strong relationship to the furniture industry, specifically the Bauhaus movement had a strong influence on him and he would come to count Bauhaus pioneers Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer among his circle of acquaintances. Driven by the idea that modern architects needed modern furniture, he hired room designer and designer Florence Schust, who with a degree from Cranbrook Academy in Michigan, a degree in architecture from the Architectural Association in London, and experience from the architecture offices of Gropius and Breuer had an impressive, modernist, CV. Following their marriage in 1946 Florence Knoll and Hans Knoll founded Knoll Associates and retained the Bauhaus approach, but through cooperating with Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Jens Risom and Isamu Noguchi also guided the company in a more international direction. To this day, Knoll International is one of the most renowned manufacturers in the design furniture industry and counts design classics like the Barcelona Collection by Mies van der Rohe, the Saarinen Tulip Chairs by Eero Saarinen, the Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer and the well-known Diamond Chairs by Harry Bertoia among its exclusive portfolio.
The Saarinen Tulip Chairs from Knoll International
Knoll Inc. was acquired in 1974 by Marshall S. Cogan and has been managed since 2001 by his son Andrew B. Cogan, who listed the company to the New York Stock Exchange in 2004. Globally the furniture manufacturer presents its portfolio in numerous flagship stores and showrooms. In addition to its headquarters in the United States, Knoll has manufacturing facilities in the USA, Canada and Italy; all production sites focus on modern technologies, qualified personnel, safety and environmental friendliness. Knoll International has received numerous awards, including the National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement of the New York Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In 2019, the company will celebrate its 80th anniversary.
MR Chaise Bauhaus Edition from Knoll International
Bertoia Chair Outdoor from Knoll International
True to the Bauhaus philosophy that furniture should not compete with the architectural space, but should complement it, the furniture manufacturer Knoll produces both functional and long-lasting Bauhaus classics as well as contemporary designs by younger designers, and that through two principle channels: "KnollStudio" which focuses on design furniture for the home and "KnollOffice" which focuses on furnishing systems and seating for office space and contract use. One of the most famous Knoll product lines is the Barcelona Collection, originally designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the German Pavilion at the World Expo 1929 Barcelona. To this day, the former Bauhaus director is considered one of the most important personalities in the history of architecture and design and in 1948 Mies van der Rohe granted Knoll exclusive rights to manufacture of the Barcelona furniture, the Brno Chair and the MR Collection. Other Knoll design classics came from Harry Bertoia, who helped Charles Eames in 1946 to develop methods for layering and shaping plywood, and was a passionate metal artist; consequently it should not be a surprise that his Bertoia Chair Collection from the year 1952 is considered worldwide as one of the greatest achievements of furniture design of the 20th century. A few years later, Knoll International and Eero Saarinen launched the famous Pedestal Collection: the Tulip Chairs and the matching Saarinen Dining Tables, which both manage without the conventional four chair or table legs, are today unrivalled classics in furniture history.
Barcelona Day Bed by Mies van der Rohe
Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer
Knoll has long demonstrated a high level of sensitivity in the areas of climate responsibility, certification and sustainable design; which means, amongst other aspects, the company tries to make the entire manufacturing process as environmentally friendly as possible, from material procurement and packaging through to sales. Through the use of recycled, recyclable or similar sustainable materials, Knoll International aims to minimise environmental impact. Something reinforced by the particularly high quality of Knoll furniture, which can ideally be passed on from generation to generation due to their long service life. The manufacturer has received several awards for its environmental and conservation efforts and was the first furniture company to have ISO and ISO 14001 certification in the US and Europe. In 2004, Knoll was also founding sponsor of the Modernism at Risk Program of the World Monuments Fund, an initiative dedicated to preserving modern buildings around the world that are in danger of deterioration and demolition.
Knoll Presentation (ca. 16 MB)
Knoll Tulip Chairs by Eero Saarinen
Knoll Family Tree
smow sells exclusively originals from licensed manufacturers and is an official trading partner of Knoll International.
...While the fact that in 1954 Knoll entered a licensing agreement with Belgian manufacturer De Coene is not irrelevant... In the early 1950s Hans and Florence Knoll established a number of partnerships and realised numerous interiors projects in Europe, Knoll International being established in Stuttgart in 1951 to coordinate and oversee the European ventures...
...Florence Knoll - Architect In addition to nurturing her educationally the Saarinens also took Florence Schust under their wing, making her in all but title part of their family, and taking her with them on their annual summer holiday to Europe... The Knoll Planning Unit Moving to New York in 1941 Florence Schust jobbed for several architectural practices before her path crossed that of Hans Knoll: scion of a German furniture dynasty, in the process of establishing his own furniture company in New York, a furniture company specialising in the modern European designs Hans had, in effect, grown up with...
...Focussing principally on furniture and lighting design Jehs+Laub have developed a wide range of products for international manufacturers as varied as, and amongst many others, Fritz Hansen, Wilkhahn, Knoll, Belux and Cassina...
...Horsepower by Antenna Design for Knoll Good design is, as we recently noted, not necessarily a case of finding the correct solution but of correctly understanding the question... Which is also the reason why we were immediately taken by Antenna Design's Horsepower for Knoll...
...In 2000 Glen Oliver Löw returned to Germany where he took up a professorial position at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, HFBK, in Hamburg and established a design studio in the city from where he has realised projects with clients such as Thonet, Steelcase and Knoll...
