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As part of our mid-century modern series, we portray Florence Knoll Bassett, who transformed how we think of office design with her streamlined furniture and leadership of design brand Knoll.
Under Knoll, Florence Knoll, as she was then called, brought modern lines and a human-centric design ethos to the American office environment. As well as leading the company’s interior design arm, the Planning Unit, she designed furniture for its collections and developed its aesthetic identity.
She was also known for professionalising the mid-century interior design industry, combining her extensive architectural training with an eye for form and combatting the notion that interior design was the same as decorating.
In a 1964 New York Times article about her, titled “Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modern Design; Florence Knoll Gave Business ‘Living’ a New Look”, she said that offices had changed from being ‘decorated’ to being designed.
“I am not a decorator,” she said in the article. “The only place I decorate is my own house.”
Knoll was founded by Florence Knoll’s husband Hans Knoll, who was in the process of developing the company in New York City when the pair met in 1941.
In 1943, Florence Knoll joined the burgeoning company as a designer and soon after became a full business partner upon the couple’s marriage in 1944.
Today, Knoll is known for its portfolio of office furniture, including notable designs such as the Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe, the Wassily Lounge Chair by Marcel Breuer, and the Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen – three pieces Florence Knoll commissioned herself through her many long-standing connections in the architecture world.
She also created seating, tables, and storage systems for office interiors that were meant as “fill-in” pieces – uncomplicated designs that complemented the more flashy products by her peers.
“People ask me if I am a furniture designer,” she said. “I am not. I never really sat down and designed furniture. I designed the fill-in pieces that no one else was doing. I designed sofas because no one was designing sofas.”
Among her best-known pieces are the T Angle series of tables, which were constructed from a steel base and have laminate tops. These include a dining table, coffee tables and numerous other versions.
Her Executive Desk, part of her Executive series and also known as the Partner’s Desk, with its rosewood top and splayed chrome-plated steel base, still looks modern today and is still produced by Knoll.
Planning Unit specialised in corporate office interiors
Her Lounge Collection, created in 1954, also epitomizes her approach. It encompassed a tufted lounge chair, sofa, settee, and bench that sat upon geometric, metal frames.
Today, these pieces are treasured additions to household or corporate spaces, but Florence Knoll originally created them as a backdrop for the office interiors she designed while she led the Knoll Planning Unit.
Founded by Florence Knoll in 1946, the Planning Unit consisted of a small group of Knoll designers that created corporate office interiors for prominent companies such as the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Cowles Publications and CBS.
Led by Florence Knoll’s exacting eye, the small team was tasked with designing furniture, textiles and objects for a space.
In the 1960s, Florence Knoll designed the interiors of a new CBS headquarters in New York City, housed in a black-clad skyscraper by friend Eero Saarinen.
“Her job embraces everything from the choice of wall coverings – sometimes felt or tweed for the sake of acoustics – to ashtrays, pictures and door handles,” the New York Times said of her involvement in the project.
“She has led people to see that texture in fabrics can be as interesting as a print (she dislikes prints) and that steel legs on tables, chairs and sofas can have grace and elegance.”
Bespoke pieces usually custom-made for interior projects
The bespoke furniture that Florence Knoll designed for projects such as the CBS headquarters would then be folded into the Knoll catalogue.
“The spaces suggest the furniture, and sometimes that furniture was not in our catalog,” Vincent Cafiero, an early member of the Planning Unit, said.
During this period, Florence Knoll also started a textile program at the company, which would become Knoll Textiles. This saw her develop a “tagged sample and display system”, a technique used industry-wide today.
As Knoll grew, Florence Knoll would also shape much of the company’s identity and practices.
She worked with designer Herbert Matter to create branding for Knoll, including its advertisements, stationary and logo, imbuing its branding with the same straightforward style as her personal work.
Florence Knoll also filled the company’s catalogue with commissions from her many connections, gathered during her architectural training at schools including he Cranbrook Academy of Art, Columbia University, Architectural Association and Illinois Institute of Technology.
Born and raised in Michigan, her training began in earnest at age 12, when Florence was orphaned after the death of her father at age 5 and mother at 12.
Her guardian encouraged her to choose a boarding school, where the young Florence chose the Kingswood School for Girls, a school on the same grounds as Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Eilel Saarinen, Cranbrook’s then headmaster and designer of both schools, noticed Florence’s interest in architecture and eventually “virtually adopted” Florence into the Saarinen family, according to Knoll.
Mies van der Rohe was “teacher and friend”
She would go on to befriend his son, Eero, and other prominent designers during her studies and beyond including Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Isamu Noguchi and George Nakashima.
Florence was also mentored by architects Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.
Designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who she studied under at the Illinois Institute of Technology, had perhaps the most lasting influence on her style, as seen in her methodical, detail-oriented approach.
“Like her teacher and friend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ms Knoll Bassett’s attention to detail was all-encompassing, relentless, and, over time, the stuff of legend,” said Knoll.
Her colleagues held her “unerring” taste in high regard.
“Each time I go East I see something you have done,” wrote Charles Eames in a 1957 letter to Florence Knoll. “It is always good, and I feel grateful to you for doing such work in a world where mediocrity is the norm.”
Upon Hans Knoll’s sudden death in 1955, Florence Knoll took over leadership of the company as president until 1960, when she switched back into a design and development role and moved to Florida with her second husband Henry Hood Bassett.
She officially retired from the company in 1965 at age 48.
Under her five years as president Knoll doubled in size, cementing its status as a leader in the design industry.
“[Florence Knoll] probably did more than any other single figure to create the modern, sleek, postwar American office, introducing contemporary furniture and a sense of open planning into the work environment,” wrote The Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger in 1984.
In 1961, Florence Knoll became the first woman to receive the Gold Medal for Industrial Design from the American Institute of Architects, and in 2003 she was presented with the National Medal of Arts.
“We have lost one of the great design forces of the 20th century,” Goldberger said when Florence Knoll died in 2019. “Florence Knoll Bassett may have done more than anyone else to create what we think of as the ‘Mad Men’ design of the midcentury modern workspace.”
Mid-century modern
This article is part of Dezeen’s mid-century modern design series, which looks at the enduring presence of mid-century modern design, profiles its most iconic architects and designers, and explores how the style is developing in the 21st century.
This series was created in partnership with Made – a UK furniture retailer that aims to bring aspirational design at affordable prices, with a goal to make every home as original as the people inside it. Elevate the everyday with collections that are made to last, available to shop now at made.com.