Knoll Florence Knoll® Lounge Settee

As head of the Knoll Planning unit, Florence Knoll always approached furniture design with the larger space in mind. Most important to her was how a piece fit into the greater design — the room, the floor, the building. Every element of a Knoll-planned space supported the overall design and complemented the existing architecture.

Never one to compromise, Florence would often design furniture when she, "needed the piece of furniture for a job and it wasn’t there.” And while she never regarded herself as a furniture designer, her quest for harmony of space and consistency of design led her to design several of Knoll’s most iconic pieces—all simple, none plain.

As skyscrapers rose up across America during the post-war boom, Florence Knoll saw it as her job to translate the vocabulary and rationale of the modern exterior to the interior space of the corporate office. Thus, unlike Saarinen and Bertoia, her designs were architectural in foundation, not sculptural. She scaled down the rhythm and details of modern architecture while humanizing them through color and texture. Her lounge collection, designed in 1954, is a perfect example of her restrained, geometric approach to furniture, clearly derived from her favorite mentor, Mies van der Rohe.

Warmed through color and texture, the Florence Knoll Settee is a scaled-down translation of the rhythm and proportions of mid-century modern architecture. With a spare, geometric profile—an expression of the rational design approach Florence Knoll learned from her mentor, Mies van der Rohe—the settee is utterly modern and totally timeless.

MEASUREMENTS:

• Height: 79.2 cm / 31.2 inch


• Seat Height: 46.3 cm / 18.2 inch


• Arm Height: 59.7 cm / 23.5 inch


• Width: 158.7 cm / 62.5 inch


• Depth: 81.7 cm / 32.2 inch

MATERIALS:

• Exposed metal frame and legs in heavy gauge steel with satin and polished chrome finish


• Inner frame is solid wood

HELPFUL NOTES:

• Seat suspension with No-Sag springs


• Greenguard Indoor Air Quality Certified®

Florence Knoll

USA, 1917

Born Florence Schust in 1917, and orphaned at age 12, Knoll began her architectural studies at the Kingswood School in Michigan and was virtually adopted by the family of Eliel Saarinen. She continued her studies at Cranbook Academy of Art, the Architectural Association in London, and the Illinois Institute of Technology under Mies van der Rohe, where she received her architectural degree. In 1946, she married Hans Knoll, owner of the Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company and the firm became known as Knoll Associates, Inc.

As an architect, interior space planner, and furniture designer, Florence Knoll defined the look and market for modern design in corporate America in the 1950s and made modern American design an international style. Her pioneering interiors profoundly influenced post-World War II design. Her reductive aesthetic of light, open spaces furnished with elegant woven fabrics, furniture grouped for informal conversation and brightly colored wall panels made Knoll one of the most influential design firms of the time.

Her notable planning projects for the firm included the interior design of the CBS, Seagrams, and Look magazine offices in New York City. After her husband’s death, Florence served as president and continued as design director of the company until 1965 when she resigned to pursue a career as a freelance designer.

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