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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “I AM NOT A DECORATOR”:

FLORENCE KNOLL, THE KNOLL PLANNING UNIT, AND THE MAKING

OF THE MODERN OFFICE

Bobbye Tigerman

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Early American Culture

Spring 2005

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “I AM NOT A DECORATOR”:

FLORENCE KNOLL, THE KNOLL PLANNING UNIT, AND THE MAKING

OF THE MODERN OFFICE

Bobbye Tigerman

Approved: Behiar

Approved: Brock W. Jobe, Professor in char is on behalf of the Advisory Committee

Approved: J. Ritchie Garrison, Ph.D. Director of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture

Approved: Conride-M. Gempesaw II, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Science

Approved: Conrado II, Ph.D. Vice-Provost for Academic and International Programs

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “I am not a decorator,” she said emphatically. “The only place I decorate is my own house.”

- Florence Knoll Bassett

Photo courtesy Knoll Archives

Quotation from Virginia Lee Warren, “Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modem Design,” The New York Times, 1 September 1964, p. 40.

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my advisers Bernard Herman and Brock Jobe for their

unflagging support, gentle encouragement, comment-laden drafts, and thoughtful

responses to my dozens of questions over the past year.

I am grateful to the many designers who shared their memories of Florence Knoll

and the Planning Unit with me. Jens Risom helped me to understand the Knoll company

before Florence Knoll arrived in 1943. Bill Shea, Jeff Osbome, and Dick Schultz shared

insights about the Knoll firm. As a long-serving Planning Unit designer, Vincent Cafiero

answered my questions about several specific projects and the trajectory of the Planning

Unit as a whole. And finally, I owe the greatest thanks to Allan Denenberg, former

Planning Unit designer, who welcomed me into his home, enthusiastically fielded my

frequent queries, and helped me to understand the spirit of the time and the guiding ideas

of the Planning Unit.

I met Cranbrook Archives Director Mark Coir early on, and his encouragement

impelled me to take on the project. Cranbrook archivist Leslie Edwards found dozens of

documents relating to Florence Knoll’s time at Cranbrook and subsequent years in New

York, London and Chicago. Deputy Registrar John Carter provided the student file of

Florence Schust at Columbia University and Michelle Goga shared Florence Knoll’s

student information at the Illinois Institute of Technology. At the Winterthur library, Cate

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cooney always eagerly showed me the latest acquisitions relating to modem design, and

Dot Wiggins kindly and efficiently found the interlibrary loan materials I needed.

I am indebted to many archivists who made their holdings accessible and arranged

for photographic reproductions and permissions. They include Wendy Hurlock Baker and

Judy Throm at the Archives of American Art, Gretchen Reiners and Chris Giampietro at

the Knoll Archives in New York, Bill Shea at the Knoll Archives in East Greenville,

Roberta Frey Gilboe at the Cranbrook Art Museum, Leslie Edwards at the Cranbrook

Archives, David Lombard at the CBS Photo Archives, and Julie Marquart of Marquart

Architectural Photography.

Allan Denenberg, Pat Kirkham and my Winterthur classmate Rachel Delphia read

drafts of the thesis and provided invaluable comments.

I would finally like to thank two grant-making organizations that allowed my

ambition, rather than my budget, to be the limit of my research. A grant from the

Decorative Arts Trust allowed me to visit the Florence Knoll Bassett Papers at the

Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C. and the Knoll Archives in New York and

East Greenville, Pennsylvania. The Society of Winterthur Fellows Professional

Development Grant covered image permissions and production costs of the thesis.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES...... vii ABSTRACT...... x

Introduction ...... 1 Writing Women into Design History ...... 9 Florence Knoll ...... 20 Founding the Planning Unit ...... 33 The Planning Unit: A Profile ...... 38 The Interior Design Paste-Up and the Clothing of Modem Architecture... 43 The Knoll Desk as an Index of Office Hierarchy and Modernity ...... 47 The Knoll Look ...... 54 CBS: A Total Work of Art...... 68 The End of the Planning Unit ...... 72 Conclusion: The Rise of Florence Knoll ...... 74

APPENDIX: LIST OF KNOLL PLANNING UNIT PROJECTS...... 78

Proj ects from contemporary periodicals ...... 78 Projects from “Knoll Planning Unit,” list, n.d., Knoll Archives ...... 84 Projects from “Knoll Planning Unit,” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives 88

FIGURES...... 89 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 123

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1. Florence Knoll, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 89

Fig. 2. Design for a Model House in Michigan, Florence Schust, c. 1932-34, Copyright Cranbrook Archives, #5428-6...... 90

Fig. 3. A three dimensional paste-up of an evening dress, designed by Loja Saarinen for Florence Knoll Bassett, 1935, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution ...... 91

Fig. 4. “View from Garden,” Design for a House, Florence Schust, 1939, Copyright Cranbrook Archives #5467-3 ...... 92

Fig. 5. Armchair, designed 1945, for the Rockefeller Family Offices, Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum ...... 93

Fig. 6. Nelson Rockefeller office by Knoll Planning Unit, 1946, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution ...... 94

Fig. 7. Schematic plan of Knoll Planning Unit office, c. 1956-57 ...... 95

Fig. 8. Knoll Planning Unit entrance, 575 Madison Avenue, New York, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 96

Fig. 9. Knoll Planning Unit fabric storage, 575 Madison Avenue, New York, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 97

Fig. 10. Desks for Knoll Planning Unit designers, 575 Madison Avenue, New York, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 98

Fig. 11. “Outline of Services Available,” Knoll Planning Unit, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 99

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 12. A paste-up of the design for Jack Heinz's office at H. J. Heinz, created by Florence Knoll, c. 1955, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution ...... 100

Fig. 13. No. 1543W Desk, Florence Knoll, c. 1952, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 101

Fig. 14. Knoll secretarial desk, c. 1940s, Courtesy Knoll Archives 102

Fig. 15a. Specifications and Sales Points for Florence Knoll Desks, 1500 & 3500 Line Desks - Designed 1952, p. 1, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 103

Fig. 15b. Specifications and Sales Points for Florence Knoll Desks, 1500 & 3500 Line Desks - Designed 1952, p. 2, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 104

Fig. 16. Hans Knoll office at Knoll Associates, 575 Madison, New York, c. 1951, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 105

Fig. 17. Frank Stanton office at Columbia Broadcasting System, 1954, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 106

Fig. 18. San Francisco showroom of Knoll Associates, 1956, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 107

Fig. 19. Frazar Wilde office at Connecticut General, 1957, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 108

Fig. 20. Jack Heinz office at H.J. Heinz Company, c. 1955, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 109

Fig. 21. 1205S2 Settee, Florence Knoll, 1954, Courtesy Knoll Media Library ...... 110

Fig. 22. 2510 Side Table in Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modern, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Florence Knoll, c. 1955, Copyright Julie Marquart 2004-2005...... I l l

Fig. 23. 2544M Credenza, Florence Knoll, Courtesy Knoll Media Library ...... 112

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 24. 2551 Lounge Chair, Florence Knoll, c. 1955, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 113

Fig. 25. 250 Barcelona chair, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929, Courtesy Knoll Media Library ...... 114

Fig. 26. New York showroom of Knoll Associates, 575 Madison Avenue, 1951, Courtesy Knoll Archives ...... 115

Fig. 27. Photograph of the entrance view from inside Frank Stanton’s office at Columbia Broadcasting System, 1964, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution ...... 116

Fig. 28. Advertisement for LOF window glass, Architectural Forum 113:1 (July 1960): 173, Courtesy Pilkington North America, Inc...... 117

Fig. 29. Advertisement for ColorLine partitions, Architectural Forum 111:6 (July 1959): 17 ...... 118

Fig. 30. Four drawings by Florence Knoll Bassett showing a variation of wall color for the Columbia Broadcasting System offices, 1964, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution ...... 119

Fig. 31. Floor model of the CBS Building (Black Rock) at 51 West 52 Street, New York, New York, April 20, 1964, Courtesy CBS Photo Archive...... 120

Fig. 32. Exhibition shot,Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modern, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 17, 2004 - April 10, 2005, Copyright Julie Marquart 2004-2005...... 121

Fig. 33. Exhibition shot,Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modern, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 17, 2004 - April 10, 2005, Copyright Julie Marquart 2004-2005...... 122

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT

The Knoll Planning Unit (1943-1965), the interior design service of Knoll

Associates, was responsible for some of the most pioneering corporate interior designs of

the postwar period. It was one of the first interior design firms to specialize in interiors

for contemporary buildings and set the standard for modem office design. A brochure

about the Planning Unit stated that it “grew out of a demand by private and architect-

clients to provide interiors in which the concept embodied in the Knoll line of furniture

and fabrics is carried to its logical conclusion: fusion of architectural space and its

contents.”

The Planning Unit was directed by the privileged and talented Florence Knoll.

Trained as an architect, Knoll designed furniture, accessories, and interiors. Her self-

fashioning as architect and interior designer, and resistance to the designations interior

decorator and furniture designer, reflected her desire to be considered a professional

rather than an enthusiast and alluded to the ways that she pushed against the gender

stereotypes of these professional designations.

Planning Unit offices were distinguished by a humanized modernism which

combined spare form with sumptuous textures and conspicuous color. Offices resembled

domestic living rooms in the choice and arrangement of furniture. They showcased the

Knoll look, a recognizable combination of furniture, colors, fabrics, and decorative

elements, which became the trademark of Knoll design and a symbol of the postwar

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. office. Through a combination of auspicious clients, astute promotion and publication,

and skilled staff, the Planning Unit turned this corporate humanized modernism into a

ubiquitous reality.

The thesis traces the history of the Planning Unit from its founding by Florence

Knoll in 1943 until her retirement in 1965. A methodological note discusses the

motivation for writing about this woman designer and the issues raised in the project. The

biographical sketch of Florence Knoll details the circuitous yet auspicious course of her

education. The sections on the Planning Unit describe its history, working methods, and

an analysis of the distinguishing elements of the Knoll look. The thesis concludes with a

case study of the CBS skyscraper in New York and an assessment of the legacy of

Florence Knoll.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction

When Florence Knoll began designing interiors for the Hans Knoll Furniture

Company in 1943, she was offering a service to architects and clients that was

scarcely available at the time.1 (Fig. 1) The Knoll Planning Unit was an interior

design firm that contracted with corporate and individual clients to create interiors

that were compatible with modem architectural space. According to several architects

and designers practicing at the time, there was no alternative to Knoll if one was

looking for modem furniture and fittings.2 Florence Knoll and the Knoll Planning

Unit played a major role in defining the modem office in the years following World

War II by promoting humanized modem interiors. Distinctive elements of these

interiors became standard inclusions, almost a visual code, of the modem office.

The life of Florence Knoll (1917-) was distinguished by privilege and good

fortune. She had the means and acumen to position herself at a nexus of propitious

circumstances. Bom in Michigan and orphaned as a minor, she had the resources to

enroll at Kingswood, the girls’ school at Cranbrook, where she found an environment

that valued aesthetics and good design. Her proclivity and natural talent for design

1 While the name of my subject changes over time I will refer to her as Florence Knoll throughout for the sake of consistency and clarity. She was bom Florence Margaret Schust in 1917, became Florence Knoll when she married Hans Knoll in 1946, and became Florence Knoll Bassett when she married Harry Hood Bassett in 1958. To complicate matters, most friends and colleagues referred to her by her nickname, “Shu.”

2 This sentiment was expressed in both contemporary and recent accounts. Olga Gueft, “Knoll Without Knolls?,” Interiors 126 (August 1966): 150-57; Vincent Cafiero, author interview, telephone, 6 June 2004; Neville Lewis, author interview, telephone, 19 September 2004.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. emerged early on, and she stated at the age of seventeen her ambition to be an

architect and designer.3 Due to a series of personal and political circumstances, her

education took a circuitous route, taking her to the Cranbrook Academy of Art,

Columbia University School of Architecture, the University of Munich, the

Architectural Association in London, and the Illinois Institute of Technology. Along

this course, she acquired mentors and friends in the field of modem architecture and

design, including Eliel, Loja, and Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto,

Wallace K. Harrison and Walter Gropius. Her ability to connect with prominent

designers attested to her personal charm and keen wit. In her capacity as a designer

and director of the Planning Unit, she was known for her exacting standards and

somewhat imperious disposition.

Florence Knoll and the Knoll Planning Unit established a method and look for

corporate interior design by addressing individual client needs and using signature

furnishings and decorative elements. This Knoll look gained recognition and

popularity through publication in the prominent architecture and design periodicals of

the day.4 The firm’s publicity engine and a prominent client list were responsible for

disseminating the look, resulting in imitation by other interior design firms.

This thesis examines two subjects—an individual and an organization. The

Knoll Planning Unit was not a lone individual designing, but a collaborative team in

3 1934 Kingswood yearbook Woodwinds, p. 26, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Office of the Registrar, Student File for Florence Schust.

4 Periodicals that I examined include Architectural Forum, Architectural Record, Arts and Architecture, and Progressive Architecture.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which each member contributed to the realized project. The field of design history has

tended to focus on the achievements of individuals, obscuring or overlooking the

collective nature of design work. Although Florence Knoll is often credited with

creating the vision and single-handedly designing showrooms and furniture, the

Planning Unit always had a staff of draftsmen and job captains that worked on

projects, and their role will be emphasized throughout this thesis. This study will not

simply shore up another name in the already bulging design pantheon, but

demonstrate the collaborative nature of corporate interior design and an inclusive

understanding of design process.

Knoll Associates, Inc., and later Knoll International comprised a large

company involved in furniture development and production, textile manufacturing,

and interior design services. Its showrooms and retailers dotted the globe. It had a

sophisticated advertising campaign and relentlessly recruited prominent architects and

designers to create furniture for its line. The entire operation was surveyed in the

1981 book Knoll Design, so my project here is to focus a lens on the Knoll Planning

Unit.5 While landmark events such as the release of the durable Transportation Cloth

pedestal furniture in 1957 are important to the history of the firm and twentieth-

century design, I am limiting my purview to those events relating to the history and

development of the Planning Unit.

5 Eric Larrabee and Massimo Vignellli, Knoll Design (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1981).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In distilling the distinguishing characteristics of a Knoll Planning Unit

interior, I have identified three elements critical to the Planning Unit process and

product. The first is the planning and client presentation method called the paste-up, a

scale bird’s-eye or elevation view of an interior with swatches of fabric pasted to each

surface to simulate the finished room. Florence Knoll learned this technique at

Cranbrook and pioneered its use in interior design applications.6 The paste-up method

privileged the vibrant and tactile elements of the interior over the form and contours

of objects, displaying a concern for the stimulation of all senses. The types of

furniture found in Planning Unit offices, particularly arrangements of sofas and coffee

tables, were hardly different from those found in contemporary living rooms. It would

be an overstatement to say that the resulting offices blurred the distinction between

work and home, but Planning Unit interiors did acknowledge human use and the need

for comfort. The paste-up also referenced the domestic in the way that it conceived of

interiors as the clothing of the building. It was a technique that Florence Knoll

borrowed from clothing design, in which the textile swatches pasted on a cardboard

drawing of a model represented clothing on a body. By using the paste-up for

interiors, she related the way that clothing conceals and drapes the body to the way

that interiors cover and enhance the architectural structure of the building. The

connection between home and office was not only made on functional grounds, but

conceptual grounds as well.

6 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 5, Folder 20, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, hereafter Florence Knoll Bassett Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The second distinguishing trait of the Knoll Planning Unit interior is the way

that desks and office arrangements communicated function and hierarchy. While this

practice had a long history in office design, the Planning Unit interior reinforced the

hierarchy of workers by creating differentiated spaces and furniture arrangements for

executive, middle-management, and secretarial staff. Knoll produced two distinct

lines of desks—one for secretarial use and one for executive offices. The latter

contributed to the maintenance of status and hierarchy through scale, quality of

materials, and form.

The third distinguishing trait of the Knoll Planning Unit interior is the

phenomenon of the “Knoll look,” a recognizable aesthetic of colors, fabrics, and

decorative elements that functioned as a trademark of Knoll design. The Knoll look

communicated a sophisticated and sensitive modernism —one which was compatible

7 A note on the word “modem.” The luxury of hindsight has confirmed that there was no single monolithic modem movement, but a range of modernisms that were subject to regional, cultural and programmatic factors. [See Sarah Williams Goldhagen, ed., Anxious Modernisms: Experimentations in Postwar Architectural Culture (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture and Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000) and Rosemarie Haag Bletter, “Myths of Modernity,” in Craft in the Machine Age, 1920- 1945: The History o f Twentieth-Century Craft, ed. Janet Kardon, (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the American Craft Museum, 1995), 46-51 for scholarly work that articulates the idea of multiple modernisms.] Even more, it has been shown that modem was by no means the desired style of the majority of society. It was the elite who favored the modem taste, but most preferred traditional decoration. [See Shelley Nickles, “More is Better: Mass Consumption, Gender, and Class Identity in Postwar America,” American Quarterly 54:4 (December 2002): 581- 622] But I will use the term “modem” in this essay in the most intellectually honest way that I can—as it was used by Knoll in the period to suggest progressiveness and efficiency. It embodied a novel, forward-thinking approach to aesthetics and materials that the Planning Unit sought. A brochure produced by the Planning Unit stated that “since its inception the Knoll organization has endeavored to design and produce

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with glass curtain wall skyscrapers but also acknowledged the need for a visually and

tactically stimulating environment. As the Planning Unit published projects in

architecture and design periodicals, the integral nature of the look cohered. Knoll

showrooms reinforced the look, broadcasting its essentials to the architecture and

design community. And while I do not claim that the Knoll look influenced office

design universally, it did have an indelible impact on the work of many designers and

design firms.

The Planning Unit had a multivalent mission, serving both the ideological and

economic needs of the Knoll firm. The promotional purpose of the Planning Unit was

not solely to provide clients with interior design services, but to promote the furniture

and textiles of the Knoll line. The different branches of the Knoll firm—the furniture

showrooms, the interior design service, and the textile production unit—worked in

concert to sell Knoll products; each branch of the business reinforced the others.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Knoll was a growing company. In 1960, Knoll

Associates, Inc. did $15 million of business.8 And despite a fairly small staff, the

Planning Unit was extraordinarily prolific, completing over seventy projects and

seven showrooms in the United States during Florence Knoll’s 22-year tenure.9 While

furnishings and interiors appropriate to contemporary architecture and suited to the changing needs of modem living.” There was a sense that the postwar period would bring changes to daily life and that Knoll would design products that would be critical to new lifestyles.

8 Ursula Cliff, “Gallery 4: Florence Knoll,” Industrial Design 8 (April 1961): 68.

9 For a full list of Knoll Planning Unit projects, see Appendix: List of Knoll Planning Unit Projects.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. some projects received copious attention in the architectural press, dozens went

uncelebrated and were silent testaments to the ubiquity of the Knoll look.

The Planning Unit fulfilled a more historic purpose of creating integrated

architecture and interiors. This Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk concept had been

common currency since the the late nineteenth-century British design reform

movements and was a salient feature of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright in America,

and of the work of Eliel Saarinen and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Florence Knoll’s

mentors. A brochure about the Planning Unit stated that it “grew out of a demand by

private and architect-clients to provide interiors in which the concept embodied in the

Knoll line of furniture and fabrics is carried to its logical conclusion: fusion of

architectural space and its contents.”10 Here was clearly articulated the fundamental

mission of the Planning Unit—to create office interiors that corresponded with the

modem office building.

The Planning Unit was responding to a need for office design that resulted

from a boom in office building after the Second World War. In 1956, Architectural

Forum commissioned an economist to forecast future building levels in the United

States. The article summarizing his findings began in literally glowing terms: it

reported that “tied to an expanding economy, with the promise of strong gains in

population, production, and income, building’s prospects over the next decade are not

just bright, but dazzling.”11 He linked population growth to an increase in the gross

10 “Text for Planning Unit Brochure,” n.d., Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. national product, which, in turn, was linked to building activity. In 1956, just over

two billion dollars were spent on office building and warehouse construction, and that

number was predicted to rise by 24% by 1966. A second article written in 1963

confirmed the earlier article’s projections. This article looked back on the past decade

of New York building and described the postwar period as an “epochal rush to build

in Manhattan’s midtown and downtown core.”12 A forecast predicted the construction

of new office space in Manhattan for the forthcoming decade to maintain the pace of

the 1950s. The building boom spawned not only a demand for office furniture, but for

office planning services. According to the reports of a 1957 Architectural Forum

article, this building boom called for a specialist “in the science of making interior

office space work out logically, i.e., profitably.”1 T Traditional architectural firms and

interior design firms sought to fill this need, but the Knoll Planning Unit differed

from these in its full-service approach and vertical integration of furniture and

designers.

The thesis traces the history of the Planning Unit from its founding by

Florence Knoll in 1943 until her retirement in 1965. A methodological note prefaces

the text which discusses the motivation for writing about this woman designer and the

intellectual issues faced therein. The biographical sketch of Florence Knoll details the

11 “1956-66: A Ten-Year Boom for Building,” Architectural Forum 105:6 (December 1956): 110.

12 “Office Building Boom is Going Nationwide,” Architectural Forum 118:5 (May 1963): 114.

13 “Who Gets What Office?,” Architectural Forum 106:2 (February 1957): 118-121.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. protracted yet auspicious course of her education that prepared her for a career in

design. The sections on the Planning Unit describe its history and working methods,

following by a case study of one of the Planning Unit’s most extensive projects, the

CBS skyscraper in New York City. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the

impact of the Planning Unit and the legacy of Florence Knoll.

Writing Women into Design History

One of the compelling reasons for me to study Florence Knoll and the Knoll

Planning Unit was to write the story of a woman designer into the canonical history

of design. But the immediate issue I faced was how to treat the womanhood of this

woman. Should I dwell on her women role models, the “feminine” aspects of her

design, the turning points in her life when gender was an influencing factor, thereby

constructing her as a function of her gender? Or should I write a history devoid of

gender, only addressing issues of gender when they finally could not be ignored?

When scholars write the biographies of men designers, gender is rarely considered

unless that designer makes a specific point of discussing gender in his writings or his

work. The work of men designers is thus seen as ungendered and normative. Designs

by men are uncritically accepted into the dominant discourse and form its canons. I

asked myself if it would it be possible to write the story of a woman designer without

considering gender. Could I discard the category of gender altogether, treating her the

same as if she were a man? Did I have to write a new history of design to tell the

story of Florence Knoll and all of the other talented women designers whose work has

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. been footnoted in the narrative of design history? Or could I integrate these two

narratives, demonstrating Florence Knoll’s contributions, while also delineating the

impact of her gender on her work and life? I ultimately decided that even though

Florence Knoll did not make gender a central issue in her writings about herself or a

dominant feature of her work, her gender inevitably impacted her opportunities and

the way she was perceived by colleagues and clients. The consequences of gender

were subtle but substantial.

Considering the impact of a woman’s gender on her design production can be

a treacherous endeavor. By framing her work in terms of her gender, I could overly

attribute her formal or functional choices to concerns that originate in her gender

rather than her training, her design ability, or the demands of the client. Mary

Hawkesworth warned against sliding either into a feminist empiricism, in which one

seeks to eliminate subjectivity and arrive at “an unmediated truth about the world,” or

feminist postmodernism, in which the sheer diversity of female experiences obviates

the ability to ascertain any sort of truth.14 By advocating a critical feminism, in which

truth is based on a collectively held cognition of the world, Hawkesworth demarcated

a central path in which the omnipresent issue of gender is treated in relation to all

other variables.

The historiographical summary that appears here is by no means

comprehensive. Instead, I try to articulate what four historians of women and design

14 Mary Hawkesworth, “Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth,” Signs: Journal o f Women in Culture and Society 14:3 (1989): 533-557.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. have contributed to the discourse. The first generation of feminist design historians

boldly aimed their ammunition at the unquestioned edifice of masculine modernism

which emerged out of the rhetoric and written histories of individual male architects

and the exhibition and publication program of the Museum of Modem Art. They all

sought to destabilize and rewrite the history of modem design, not by simply adding

female figures to the accepted narrative, but by accounting for gender as a factor in

the analysis of design by women.

In “Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design,”

Cheryl Buckley problematized the history of women in design by accounting for the

patriarchal influences of women in society.15 Buckley focused her lens on the

oppressive social circumstances of women pursuing careers in design and articulated

some aspects of this patriarchal stmcture, including the privileging of objects made in

a factory over those made in a domestic environment, the association of women with

nature and men with culture, and the gendering of design professions. All of these

factors played a role to some degree in Florence Knoll’s training and development,

particularly her shift from her training in architecture to her practice as an interior

designer. Buckley’s call to account for the subtle and insidious influences on a

woman’s life was an important tool to understand the career of Florence Knoll.

Buckley issued a warning against writing monographs, claiming that monographs

could not account for unattributed works, many of which were made by women, and

15 Cheryl Buckley, “Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis and Design,” in Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism, ed. Victor Margolin (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989): 251-264.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that they could not account for the object’s full life, including its stage as a

commodity in the marketplace and the way that it was used by consumers. Here

Buckley disagreed with design historian Pat Kirkham, author of Ray and Charles

Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century}6

Kirkham and Buckley come from similar ideological standpoints, both writing

design history from a feminist perspective. Kirkham was also sensitive to the

importance of addressing the context of the designer in addition to an analysis of her

output. However, Kirkham advocated studies of individual designers, writing that

“detailed studies often highlight the inadequacies of existing historical interpretations

and help refine the stories and analyzes [sz'c] we call history.”17 This thesis is not a

comprehensive biography of Florence Knoll, but an account of one aspect of her

work. I concur with Kirkham’s assertion that the study of an individual or

organization can illuminate its specific mechanisms; in this case, a close study of

Florence Knoll and the Knoll Planning Unit will shed light on how a interior design

firm operated in the immediate postwar period.

In As Long As It’s Pink, Penny Sparke attempted a feminist recasting of the

history of modem material culture, focusing on the places where women and the body

appear in design rhetoric and the role of women as users and consumers of material

16 Pat Kirkham, Ray and Charles: Designers o f the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 1995).

17 Kirkham 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 o culture. Her area of scrutiny was the “aesthetic arena of women’s lives,” or the

objects that women chose to decorate their homes and their bodies. She considered

the way that women’s choices reinforced or resisted gender stereotypes, and how

those choices constructed ideas about gender. In this way, she underscored the

selective and masculinist narrative of twentieth-century modernism and offered an

alternative reading. By changing the focus from the individual designer to the world

in which design exists, she moved away from the hagiographical tone of most design

history writing. This method is relevant for my study because it posits that objects

have specific gender that is a function both of the designer and consumer influence.

While I do contend that Florence Knoll has a role in the narrative of orthodox

modernism that many feminist design scholars seek to complicate or undermine, her

very role as a woman designer complicates their notions of a masculine design

monopoly. How did Florence Knoll, as a woman, negotiate her role as designer?

What does the acceptance of her designs say about her as a designer, and about her

designs? The simple binary of masculine/feminine does not suffice to explain how

Florence Knoll drew on both masculine and feminine gender stereotypes. By creating

a parallel women’s sphere, Sparke does not account for the inevitable bleeding of the

masculine and feminine design histories.

Peter McNeil specifically addressed the issue of gender and the interior

decorator in his essay “Designing Women: Gender, Sexuality, and the Interior

18 Penny Sparke, As Long As I t’s Pink: The Sexual Politics o f Taste (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Decorator, c. 1890-1940.”19 His project was to demonstrate that the field of interior

decoration in the early twentieth century was the domain of women. But he also

complicated this stereotype by showing how the interior decorator was promoted as

an artist by its practitioners, yet considered an unsophisticated tradesperson by its

detractors. He also showed how ideas of color, textiles, and domesticity both

bolstered and were reinforced by prevailing notions of femininity.20 He usefully

illustrated the conflation of fashion and interior decoration as two constantly

changing realms perennially in pursuit of the latest trends, and the conflation, by both

critics and interior decorators themselves, of women and their homes as embodiments

of the ideal of domesticity. McNeil’s analysis of the primarily domestic interior

decorating industry before World War II offers useful historical background and

serves as a foil to Florence Knoll’s postwar corporate interior design undertaking.

As a material culture scholar, I first looked for indicators of gender in

Florence Knoll’s designs. In constructing the arguments about the definition of the

19 Peter McNeil, “Designing Women: Gender, Sexuality and the Interior Decorator, c. 1890-1940,” Art History 17:4 (December 1994): 631-657. For other recent literature on women as interior designers, see Pat Kirkham, Penny Sparke, and Judith B. Gura, ‘“A Woman’s Place... ’?: Women Interior Designers,” Women Designers in the USA, 1900-2000, ed. Pat Kirkham (New York: Bard Graduate Center in the Decorative Arts and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 304-27; Cheryl Robertson, “From Cult to Profession: Domestic Women in Search of Equality,” in The Material Culture o f Gender, the Gender o f Material Culture, eds. Katharine A. Martinez and Kenneth L. Ames (Winterthur, Del.: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997), 75-109; Beverly Gordon, “Woman’s Domestic Body: The Conceptual Conflation of Women and Interiors in the Industrial Age,” Winterthur Portfolio 31:4 (Winter 1996): 281-302; Lucinda Kaukas Havenhand, “A View from the Margin: Interior Design,” Designlssues 20:4 (August 2004): 32-42.

20 McNeil 634.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. modem office and the architectonic nature of her furniture, issues of gender did not

come to the forefront. Rather, Florence Knoll seemed to be in conversation with her

contemporaries, drawing on Miesian forms and commissioning prominent designers

to create furniture for the line. Looking at her designs, nothing says ‘woman’ to me;

she was reacting to the aesthetic trends of the day. But while Florence Knoll does not

forefront her gender in her work, it does emerge at key points.

On several occasions, Florence Knoll expressed that her gender was the

reason that she became an interior designer.21 Although trained in architecture at

some of the most prestigious architectural schools in the United Kingdom and

America, she had trouble finding work as a practicing architect until she received her

degree, resorting to work as an unpaid apprentice in the architectural office of

Gropius and Breuer in 1939. And even after securing a job with the architecture firm

Harrison & Abramovitz, she found that her status as architect was contingent upon

the firm’s needs. The firm delegated her the interior design work before it was

assigned to male architects. This work delegation functioned to limit her status as

architect. The more interior design work she carried out, the less time she would be

engaged in architecture and constmction. The delegation of work inadvertently

pigeonholed her as an interior designer, not an architect. And in the hierarchical

world of architecture, the architect was categorically superior to the interior designer.

21 See Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 10 and Paul Makovsky, interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. An alternate perspective could be that Florence Knoll was singled out for

interior design projects because of her unique and unsurpassed ability in that area of

design. We must not forget that Florence Knoll did not resist the attraction of interior

design work, and assumed the role of interior designer in order to initiate her

relationship with Hans Knoll. In 1943, Hans Knoll needed an interior designer to

design his showroom. Only later did Florence Knoll design furniture and assume a

managerial role at the Planning Unit.

Just as interior design was designated “women’s work,” Florence Knoll was

also involved in textile production, another area with overriding “feminine”

associations. In addition to the Planning Unit, Florence Knoll oversaw KnollTextiles,

the textile production arm of the company. While I cannot attribute any specific

textile designs to her hand, she was central to the running of the operation and worked

closely with the textile designers. Despite Florence Knoll’s activity in the

traditionally “feminine” areas of interior design and textiles, I am not implying that

she entered these fields because she was a woman. Rather, I am suggesting that

incidental events and social perceptions of gender propriety drew her to these fields,

where she flourished.

However, I do suggest that Florence Knoll took gender stereotypes into

account when she constructed her design identity. While working within fields

traditionally associated with the “feminine,” she pushed against the limits of gender,

questioning and redefining the designations designer, interior designer, and interior

decorator. Florence Knoll crafted her professional identity in very specific ways. She

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. publicly described herself as an architect or interior designer, eschewing the labels

interior decorator or furniture designer. She placed herself on the “male” side of the

binary between interior designer and interior decorator and within the nearly male-

dominated architecture profession.

In a New York Times article, Florence Knoll famously said, “I am not a

decorator.. .the only place I decorate is my own house.” 99 Her insistence • on

distancing herself from the profession of interior decorator stemmed from its

associations with domestic environments, predominantly female practitioners, and

unprofessional methods. For its detractors, the idea of a decorator summoned images

of matching upholsteries and window treatments, often in pursuit of a period style.

Decorating also connoted a personal and idiosyncratic approach, by contrast to

designing, which implied a systematic and goal-oriented process. She further

suggested that interior decoration was the province of the home, a private realm

subject to personal tastes. Even the word ‘decorate’ connoted triviality, marginality,

and amateurism. The word ‘design’ was associated with an established profession

with institutions for accreditation and training.

By contrast, as an interior designer, Knoll designed public spaces with

specific requirements for professional purposes. Did gender play a role in the

distinction between “interior decorator” and “interior designer?” While there will

always be exceptions, both men and women worked as interior decorators, with

22 Virginia Lee Warren, “Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modem Design.” The New York Times, 1 September 1964, p. 40.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. varying degrees of professionalism. Just as Florence Knoll said, anyone who

decorates their own home is an interior decorator. Even the professional interior

decorators who sold their services to clients could be male or female. Conversely, the

seven or eight designers that worked in the Planning Unit were all male.23 At that

point, the profession of draftsman or interior designer was considered a male pursuit.

Aligning herself with interior design, Florence Knoll was asserting her

professionalism, declaring that she was not an amateur enthusiast, but a trained and

competent professional. In order to make this claim, she had to push against the

associations of her gender, and expand the definition of interior designer.

Florence Knoll also famously, if somewhat disingenuously, claimed that she

was not a furniture designer. She said, “People ask me if I am a furniture designer. I

am not.” 24 Why did she make such a seemingly untenable claim? She designed nearly

half of the products in the Knoll line and her furniture filled the offices of Planning

Unit projects at a greater rate than any other designer. She is credited with designing

tables, chairs, sofas, benches, stools, and desks. Her amendment to her earlier

statement—that her furniture designs were architectural25—shed light on how she

conceived her designs and how she sought to construct her image. Most of the

designers whom she commissioned to produced furniture for the Knoll line, such as

23 Allan Denenberg, author interview, Larchmont, New York, 16 August 2004.

24 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., p. 9, Knoll Archives.

25 Paul Makovsky, interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Saarinen, Bertoia, and Mies, were also architects or sculptors. Furniture design was

supplemental to their larger vision, and the furniture they designed for Knoll often

contributed to a Gesamtkunstwerk. By describing her own furniture designs as

architectural, she asserted that her designs were not simply meant for sitting on, but

contributed to a broader vision about how an interior should function, and how it

should interface with architecture. Further, she did not want her legacy to be the

“anonymous” furniture she contributed to the Knoll line, but the full complement of

her work. Ultimately, the label ‘furniture designer’ was too narrow to describe what

Florence Knoll did. Fler furniture designs were inextricably bound to the interior

design and architecture of the space.

Florence Knoll trained as an architect and never fully relinquished that

designation, even when the bulk of her work was interior design. Perhaps she

suggested something more radical and destabilizing to the clean distinctions between

the professions of architect and designer—namely that the time-honored hierarchy of

architect over interior designer was bankrupt. The work of architects and interior

designers differed only in the area of the building assigned, not in process or method.

And if this equivalence was true, the professions of architect and interior designer

required the same intellectual capacity and creative talent. By identifying as both

architect and interior designer, Florence Knoll questioned the received definitions of

these two professions. She reinforced the modem notion of design as a problem

solving process, while trying to update older definitions of the interior designer. Both

architecture and interior design still had predominantly male practitioners, but interior

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. design was considered the feminized younger sibling. Florence Knoll’s carefully

pruned self-image as an architect, interior designer, and designer-in-general denied

the received hierarchy and cast doubt on presumed gender associations.

Florence Knoll’s struggle with gender and self-image played an important but

unobtrusive role in her professional work. I can only say with certainty that Florence

Knoll’s gender impacted the opportunities she had and the way that society perceived

her. I can hypothesize about why she constructed her image in the way she did, but

after all of the meticulous unraveling of her statements and actions, she actually

referred to gender very seldom compared to her more vocal concerns about sensitivity

to client needs, office efficiency and productivity, and the mission of creating modem

furniture for modem buildings. Returning to Hawkesworth’s warning of the double

danger of disregarding or overemphasizing the role of gender, I hope I have shown

that the collectively held perceptions about gender informed the life and career of

Florence Knoll more than any deliberate action on her part.

Florence Knoll

The life of Florence Knoll represents a unique case in design history,

significant for its exceptionalism. Knoll’s accomplishments are due to her natural

design talent, positioning in an environment that exposed her to progressive currents

in the architectural and design worlds, and proximity to some of the most prominent

architects and designers of the day. She never claimed nor exhibited forceful

independence from the influences around her. Rather, she wove together the lessons

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. learned from a variety of mentors to produce her distinctive style. She had the vision

to imagine the elements of the modem interior and to contract with designers to carry

out the vision. But her story is only understood by accounting for the privileges that

shaped her life—financial security, inherent talent, personal connections, and first-

rate training.

Florence Knoll was bom Florence Margaret Schust in Saginaw, Michigan on

May 24, 1917 to Frederick E. Schust, president of The Schust Company, and Mina

M. Schust. Her father, bom in 1881, immigrated to the United States from Germany

and later became a naturalized citizen.26 Her mother was bom in Michigan to English 97 Canadian parents. By the time of the 1930 census, Mina was widowed. Mina died

shortly thereafter and Knoll became the ward of the Second National Bank and Trust

Company of Saginaw under the guardianship of Emil Tessin, vice president of the

bank.28 She attended the Central Junior High School in Saginaw from 1929-31 and

Saginaw High School in 1931-32. Given the option to attend boarding school, she

26 Frederick Schust’s World War I draft card, Ancestry.com, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database online] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2002. National Archives and Records Administration, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. M1509, 20,243 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.

27 1930 Census, Saginaw, Michigan, Roll 1021, Enumeration District 30, Ancestry.com, 1930 United States Federal Census, [database on-line] Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2002. Data imaged from National Archives and Records Administration, 1930 Federal Population Census. T626, 2,667 rolls, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.

28 Typescript prologue of a proposed book by Maeve Slavin, Archives of American Art and Cranbrook Academy of Art, Office of the Registrar, Student File for Florence Schust.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. visited Kingswood, the girls’ school at Cranbrook, and chose to enroll in 1932. The29

1934 Kingswood yearbook Woodwinds pointed to her early direction in life when it

reported that “‘Floppus’s’ ambition is to be an architect and interior decorator some

day.”30

It is possible to see aspects of the formation of Knoll’s design logic during her

time at Kingswood. Her first architectural project was a design for a model house

(Fig. 2) under the direction of Rachel de Wolfe Raseman, the art director of

Kingswood, whom Knoll designated as a key mentor.31 Knoll sought out the project

and later attributed her desire to design a house to her own lack of home. As an

orphan, she did not have the emotional support of parents or the retreat of a physical

home, despite being welcomed into the Saarinen family.32 Designing a home allowed

her to fantasize about family life and its material accoutrements. It was a two-story

29 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 6.

TO 1934 Kingswood yearbook Woodwinds, p. 26, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Office of the Registrar, Student File for Florence Schust. After stating her professional ambitions, the yearbook editor wrote that “we think she should just stay home and be contented to be the most popular debutante of the season. Florence would decorate any party.” It seems that her inclination toward decoration and design appeared early in life. In addition to noting that Florence would continue at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in the fall of 1934, the yearbook page also recorded that Florence participated in the Carnival Committee, the Egyptian Pantomime, the Christmas Play, the French Club, the Blue Team, and was Chairman of the Senior Bridge Tea. She was a very active member of the Kingswood community.

T1 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 6.

32 While Knoll attended Cranbrook she boarded on campus. While there, she became very close with the Saarinen family, treating Loja and Eliel almost as parents and their son Eero as a brother. She spent holidays with them and traveled to Europe with them, including extended stays at their country home in Finland.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. structure with sloping roof surrounded by covered patios and landscaped pathways.

The main rectangular mass had a single-story enclosed patio emerging from one short

end of the rectangle and a two-story addition emerging from a long end of the

rectangle, which connected to the four-car garage. The fenestration consisted of

grouped nine-light frames on the first story and twelve-light frames on the second,

sometimes flanked by shutters. The house’s size suggested it would be inhabited by a

large family of significant means. Thoughtful inclusions such as a garage with both

front and back doors revealed her sensitivity to the real ways her designs would be

used. The project included the design of the house’s interiors, reflecting her early

education in the integration of architecture and interior design. The home she

designed as a high school student stood as an expression of desire and an exercise in

contemporary domestic design as learned from an array of distinguished mentors.

Knoll identified Loja Saarinen, a textile designer and weaver, as the mentor

who “stimulated [her] interest in texture and color.” For Christmas 1935 Loja

promised to make Knoll an evening dress. Knoll got a card with the pasted-up dress

for Christmas and received the dress in the new year.34 (Fig. 3) The paste-up

displayed the complicated pleating that gave a sense of the final product. The method

33 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 6. Loja established Studio Loja Saarinen at Cranbrook in October 1928 as a weaving studio for commercial clients as well as the textiles in Saarinen House and other Cranbrook buildings. In 1929 Loja established the Weaving Department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and began training students. See Robert Judson Clark, Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision, 1925-1950 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983), 175-181.

34 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 5, Folder 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of creating a miniaturized version of the completed dress resembled the way that

Knoll created paste-ups of office interiors in her later work.

After graduating from Kingswood, Knoll enrolled in the architecture course at

the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the graduate program that attracted many students

who were later influential in their profession. Knoll’s application is dated 14

September 1934. She later explained that “Eliel Saarinen suggested that I spend some

time at the academy before attending an accredited architectural school.” Knoll was

only seventeen years old when she graduated from Kingswood and perhaps Saarinen

thought she would benefit from further time in the nurturing Cranbrook environment

before moving away. In the annual report to Cranbrook’s founder George Booth,

dated 4 June 1935, Knoll was listed as a student in the architecture course taught by

Mr. Saarinen and her project was a home to be located in Saginaw, Michigan. This

was a different house design than the one she completed with Rachel Raseman at

Kingswood, and unfortunately no documentation survives from this project. She was

the only woman in the course and the only student working on a domestic project.

The other students worked on city planning projects, transportation infrastructure,

office buildings, schools, and churches. The report also noted that “she intends to

enter Columbia University in the fall as an architectural student.”36

Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 9.

36 Cranbrook Foundation Records RGI: Office Files (1981-05). CAA, Administrative, Annual Reports, 1934-1935, p. 16-17.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Knoll moved to New York in the fall of 1935 to attend the Columbia

University School of Architecture as a special student in the Town Planning

program.'Xn Before 13 October 1935 she wrote to Cranbrook administrator Mrs.

Anders Nissen that “school is wonderful. The work is much harder than it was at

-3Q Cranbrook, so we can’t give parties whenever we feel the urge.” In an undated letter

to her Kingswood mentor Rachel Raseman she wrote that “I’m enjoying college

•30 tremendously and feel that I am getting a lot from it.” Her coursework during the

year at Columbia focused on architectural history and construction.40 It is not clear

why she enrolled as a special student and not a degree student, but it is clear that she

did not continue at Columbia in the fall of 1936. By late October 1936, Knoll had

returned to Cranbrook and was living at the Art Club. Sometime in early November

-3 7 John Carter, Deputy Registrar, Columbia University, email correspondence, 22 October 2004. On 8 April 1935, the Executive Secretary of Cranbrook sent a letter to Joseph Hudnut, the Dean of the School of Architecture at Columbia University on behalf of Knoll inquiring about information and application materials. On 3 June 1935, Mary V. Libby, Secretary to the Committee on Admissions of Barnard College of Columbia University sent Knoll application materials for special student status. She lived in Johnson Hall at 411 W. 116th Street.

0 0 Letter to Mrs. Nissen, written before October 13, 1935 (date of Mrs. Anders Nissen’s response), Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

39 Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Raseman, n.d., Cranbrook Academy of Art, Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

40 Transcript of Florence Schust, Columbia University School of Architecture, 1935- 1936. She took a yearlong course in Building Construction—Methods and Problems and in Architectural Design. In the fall of 1935 she also enrolled in Architecture of New York City, Modem Buildings, and Building Construction Strategies. In the spring of 1936 she enrolled in History of Greek Architecture and Housing Developments.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. she went to Ann Arbor, Michigan to undergo surgery. She recovered at Cranbrook,

living in a room near the studio because she had difficulty walking.41 She enrolled in

Saarinen’s architecture course in the 1936-37 academic year, and was included in the

14 June 1937 annual report to Mr. Booth as a paying student. Again, she was the only

woman 42 She left Cranbrook at the end of the school year to travel in the United

States. Perhaps two false starts had convinced her to take time to pursue other

activities before she girded her loins for another attempt at architecture school. She

had the financial means to travel and on November 7, 1937, wrote to a friend Mary at

Cranbrook on stationery imprinted with the words “Macon, Georgia” about an

extended trip she took to California, the Southwest and the South. During the trip she

attended a friend’s wedding and enjoyed many parties.43 The next week on

Wednesday, November 15, 1937, Knoll expressed a desire to return to Cranbrook and

get back to work. “To tell you the truth,” she wrote, “I’m getting pretty tired of this

gay life of the South and am anxious to get back to work, so I ought to be returning

41 Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

42 Cranbrook Foundation Records RGI: Office Files (1981-05). CAA, Administrative, Annual Reports, 1937, p. 14.

43 Letter to Mary, November 7, 1937, Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust. She mentions that “the thing that impresses me so much about America is that there’s so much of it, and that so much of it is very beautiful and unspoiled by billboards a la Woodward Avenue.” This distaste for billboards would stay with her and prompt a campaign to limit billboard construction on Florida highways in the 1980s.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. very soon. In fact, you can stop forwarding my mail as I shall probably be leaving

here the first of next week, and I am intrigued with the idea of flying back.”44

Knoll spent an extended period of time between November 1937 and spring

1938 traveling in Italy with the Cranbrook sculpture professor Carl Milles and his

wife. She enrolled at the University of Munich at this time as well and would have

been exposed to current developments in German design. She then spent the summer

of 1938 with the Saarinens at their home in Hvitraask, Finland and traveled through

Europe with them.45 Travel with the Saarinens further exposed Knoll to the art and

architecture of Europe and increased her contact with prominent architects and

designers. She recalled that during the summer of 1938 “Alvar Aalto was there for

lunch one day [at Hvitraask], and he said, ‘I just came back from London, and I think

the Architectural Association is a terrific school.’ ”46 With her determination for an

architectural degree renewed, Knoll took his advice and enrolled at the Architectural

Association in the fall of 1938.

In a letter to Richard and Rachel Raseman on December 19, 1938 from

London, Knoll wrote about the structure of the course:

The Association is an excellent school & far from ordinary. The students are divided into units of about 15 with a unit master as our co-ordinator—so to speak. We have very few formal lectures & no exams except the intermediate

44 Letter to Mary, November 15, 1937, Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

45 Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

46 Paul Makovsky, “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 122.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and final issued by His Majesty’s government at the middle & end of five years. Instead of lectures on construction we do studio work entirely—with criticism from different practicing specialists. All the design critics are practicing architects who come in from time to time & keep the school up on its toes—Tecton, Maxwell Fry, etc.47

She continued to see the Rasemans as mentors, conferred with them on her progress,

and confided her successes and insecurities in them:

I’m thoroughly enjoying the work and learning a bit about construction— which is my purpose in coming here. I shall probably finish in about two years as I was placed in the middle upon arrival. At the end of the term I was notified that I could jump up to the next unit, but as I feel a bit weak in construction, I don’t think I shall do so. There’s no great hurry & besides I’m enjoying the life here to the utmost. All work & no play isn’t my motto.48

Knoll was finally acquiring the architectural training she had pursued for so long. She

had found an architectural course that suited her needs and an environment that

nurtured her creativity. She received the 1938-39 Draughtsmanship Prize, but the start

of World War II in September 1939 precipitated her return to the United States in the

fall of that year.49

In interviews and autobiographical writings, Knoll rarely discussed the

education she gained at the Architectural Association. She did not mention specific

teachers or colleagues by name, with the exception of Tecton and Fry. From her

letters we see that she gained a stronger understanding of construction and technical

47 Letter to Richard and Rachel Raseman, 19 December 1938, Cranbrook Foundation Records, RGI: Office Files (1981-05) CAA. Topical, Alumni Correspondence, 1937- 1938).

48 Ibid.

49 Letter to Richard Raseman, 11 February 1940, Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. issues. She also had the opportunity to live in London, which would have provided a

contrast to rural Cranbrook. While none of her designs from the Architectural

Association were realized, her drawings from that period present a stark contrast to

her work at Cranbrook. Her architectural style is much crisper, using sharp lines that

meet at right angles and dramatic diagonals. The design for a house (Fig. 4) includes

large expanses of glass and unobstructed areas of interior space. The rendering shows

the interior space sliced by horizontal and vertical planes that extend beyond the

confines of the building to define its envelope. The mass of the house is

dematerialized between the panes of glass and expressionistically rendered stone

cladding. There is a new boldness in the way that the three-quarters view forces the

building to an apex, highlighting the dramatic contours of the structure. At some point

between leaving Cranbrook in 1935 and returning in 1939, Knoll’s preferred

architectural style became more daring. Rather than massing boxy shapes, she was

now skillfully manipulating geometric forms. All of her future training and built work

would be an outgrowth of these developments at the Architectural Association.

When Knoll returned to the United States in 1939, she visited Cranbrook and

temporarily enrolled in Saarinen’s architecture course. Her hopes for an architectural

degree from the Architectural Association were thwarted and her return to Cranbrook

allowed her to reevaluate her future. In a semi-annual report dated 23 January 1940,

she was included as a member of Saarinen’s architecture class for the 1939-40 year.50

50 Cranbrook Foundation Records RGI: Office Files (1981-05). CAA, Administrative, Semi-Annual Reports, January 1940, p. 17.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. But Cranbrook’s alumni newsletter “Academy News 1940” complicated the

chronology because it reported that Knoll only “visited Cranbrook for about a month,

and was in Cambridge, Massachusetts for several months working for Walter Gropius

and Marcel Breuer.”51 Her personal papers support the latter turn of events. She

recalled that when she returned from London she sought a job in a New York

architectural firm, without success. She then wrote to Marcel Breuer seeking an

unpaid apprenticeship.52 Upon her return to the United States, she recalled, “I called

Marcel Breuer and was apprenticed with Gropius and Breuer until I entered the

Illinois Institute of Technology to complete my training and receive an architectural

degree.”53 In a letter to Richard Raseman on February 11,1940, she listed her recent

activities, noting that “last but most important is my job with Gropius + Breuer in

Cambridge. I’m very pleased to have it, because the work is most interesting and

Gropius and Breuer are terribly nice to work for.. .it seems that I am settled in my

little apartment in Arlington Street for a while at least.”54

51 Cranbrook Academy of Art, “Academy News 1940,” Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

52 Florence Knoll Bassett, author interview, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3 November 2004.

53 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 10.

54 Letter to Richard Raseman, 11 February 1940, Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the Registrar, Student File of Florence Schust.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The while did not last long, as she enrolled at the Illinois Institute of

Technology (UT) on September 16, 1940.55 Her educational career had undergone

many interruptions, but she was determined to finish her architectural degree at IIT.

She came with credits from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Architectural

Association, and the University of Munich. In a 2001 interview she explained her

decision to go to IIT as a result of the war interrupting her studies in England, stating

that “when the war broke out, I came back from Europe. I hadn’t finished my

education. I heard that Mies was out there, so I went out to see him.”56 By this time,

she knew the kind of architectural education she was seeking. After working for

Gropius and Breuer, two Bauhaus emigres, she continued her education with another

leader of the now-dispersed school. Her long toil to receive an architectural degree,

beginning in 1935 in New York City was finally completed in 1941 in Chicago. She

graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree

in Architecture on June 12, 1941. The registrar’s file showed that she continued to

enroll in courses until 1943. In her papers, she did not discuss the training she

received at IIT specifically, but always designated Mies van der Rohe as one of her

most important mentors. She recalled that “Mies van der Rohe had a profound effect

on my design approach and the clarification of design.” AsS7 her interior and furniture

55 Michelle Goga, Student Records Coordinator, Illinois Institute of Technology, email correspondence, 7 October 2004. She lived at the Stevens Apartments at 720 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

56 Paul Makovsky, interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 122.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. designs showed, she owed a great debt to Mies in the rigorous geometries and careful

detailing in her work. Mies would also become a friend and colleague and would

work with the Knoll company to produce his Barcelona line of furniture after World

War II.

With her architectural degree finally in hand, Knoll worked briefly for the

Chicago architectural firm of Richard Bennett before moving to New York to work

for the firm of Harrison & Abramovitz, which was responsible for several large civic

co commissions including Rockefeller Center and the United Nations Building. One of

the partners, architect Wallace K. Harrison, would be an important contact later in her

career, as Harrison contracted with the Planning Unit to design interiors for several of

his buildings. While working for Harrison & Abramovitz, she started working part-

time for Hans Knoll. Of this period, she noted:

My relationship with the [Knoll] company started during the War with some special interiors for Hans Knoll, who was just starting out in the business here in New York... I was working in architectural offices here in the City and started moonlighting, in a sense, doing these extra jobs on my own time, for Hans Knoll because he needed someone to create interiors to sell his chairs.59

In 1999 she expressed that “I worked in several architectural offices, and

being the only female, I was assigned to do the few interiors required.”60 In a 2001

57 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series ftp. 10.

58 Cliff 68.

59 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., Knoll Archives. See also Paul Makovsky’s interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97.

60 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series ftp. 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interview she noted that “because I was working in architectural offices, if anything

came along that involved an interior, they turned it over to me.”61 It was therefore her

gender which propelled her into the field of interior design. As a woman, the

principals of the firm perceived that she was predisposed to certain interior design

tasks. Perhaps she even derived confidence from these and other specialized projects

that she was delegated, allowing her to develop and showcase her design abilities.

Her training at Cranbrook and from various Bauhaus emigres placed a premium on

integrated design and the unity of architecture and interior. The shift in her career

from architect to interior designer was possible because of her education in integrated

design, but also reflected social mores about the appropriate role of women designers.

She was treated differently as a woman designer, but that difference allowed her to

develop a specialization that she would hone and capitalize on. Knoll did not have to

become an interior designer, but the fact that she did tells us something about the

opportunities and expectations of women designers at that time.

Founding the Planning Unit

There is some discrepancy in the founding date of the Planning Unit. In a

brochure dated May 11, 1959, the Planning Unit was described as fifteen years old,

putting its origin in 1944.62 The architect Emanuela Frattini Magnusson placed the

61 Paul Makovsky, interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97.

62 “Text for Planning Unit Brochure,” n.d., Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. founding of the Planning Unit in 1945 in a timeline in her article, but wrote that “in

1943, Florence left her job to become Hans Knoll’s partner in charge of founding and

directing the Knoll Planning Unit.”63 In a 2001 interview with Paul Makovsky, Knoll

described the turn of events as follows, placing the founding of the Planning Unit in

1943:

I was working in New York. Hans Knoll came in and was trying to sell a chair design that he had bought. That’s how I met him. He had a request to do some interiors and asked me to do them for him. That’s when the Planning Unit got started.64

The Planning Unit was Hans’s idea, but it was Florence Knoll’s design vision

that was responsible for the widespread influence that it exerted on corporate design.

When she started working for Hans in 1943, opportunities were limited because of

wartime restrictions. Hans was working with Jens Risom to produce a chair made of

surplus army materials. Florence Knoll designed the showroom to sell the furniture

located at 72nd Street in Manhattan.65 The Planning Unit started slowly and did not

have an active project schedule until the 1950s. Many furniture showrooms occupied

the time and resources of the Planning Unit in the early years, including the 1947

63 Emanuela Frattini Magnusson, “Florence Knoll, Una Storia,” Abitare (June 1999): 170-77.

64 Paul Makovsky, interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97. Knoll expressed the same sentiment when discussing the first Knoll New York City showroom at 601 Madison Avenue. She said that “the Planning Unit began when I joined Hans Knoll at 601 Madison Avenue.” Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 5, Folder 12.

65 Larrabee and Vignelli 15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dallas showroom, the 1948 New York showroom at 601 Madison Avenue, the 1948

Chicago showroom, and the 1951 New York showroom at 575 Madison Avenue.

In 1946 Hans and Florence married and the firm changed its name to Knoll

Associates, Inc. to reflect the equal status of the partners. They each brought distinct

talents to the partnership. Hans was extraordinarily entrepreneurial and charismatic.

He recognized that there would be increased demand for modem furniture in the

postwar world and had the acumen to build a company to supply it. But he was not a

designer. Florence Knoll both understood the vision and had the diverse skills and

training to design textiles, furniture, interiors, and the buildings themselves.

One of the first Planning Unit projects was the Rockefeller family offices in

Rockefeller Center in 1946. Knoll was introduced to the Rockefellers by her former

boss Wally Harrison and Howard Meyers, the editor of Architectural Forum.66 The

family offices called for furniture made of fine woods and materials, befitting the

offices of one of the wealthiest families in America. A single upholstered armchair

with splayed, tapering legs survives in the collection of the Cranbrook Art Museum.

(Fig. 5) It closely resembles the winning living room chair by Eero Saarinen and

Charles Eames in the 1940 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition

sponsored by the Museum of Modem Art in the use of upholstery, tapering wood

legs, and armrests integral to the back and seat.67 A photograph of Nelson

66 Cliff 69.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Rockefeller’s personal office shows the simplicity of furnishings and decoration. (Fig.

6) The simplicity is evident in the limited number of furniture forms (one desk, three

chairs, and one bookcase) and the restraint shown in the limited number of tabletop

accessories. The central piece of furniture is a rosewood table desk with angled return

and tapering wood legs. Accessories included plants and personal mementos. As the

earliest visual evidence of the work of the Planning Unit, the Rockefeller offices were

a precursor to the Knoll look that would develop in the 1950s. Already present was

the elimination of excessive clutter and incorporation of a variety of textures in the

window curtains, upholsteries and carpet. The furniture line did not yet include many

signature pieces, so most of the furniture was custom-designed. A letter from Nelson

A. Rockefeller on 14 December 1946 commended her work:

I want to express on behalf of all of us here our very sincere appreciation of the outstanding job you have done. One rarely finds such an effective blending of good taste, originality and administrative ability. The result has brought infinite satisfaction to all of us and we are delighted with the zro atmosphere and environment you have created.

The Rockefeller commission represented one of many instances where the client

entrusted Knoll and the Planning Unit to use the most current furniture and design

elements. The demand for modem design at the end of the war was limited, so these

individual commissions were important for word-of-mouth publicity.

67 The Rockefeller office chair was a gift of Laurence S. Rockefeller, CAM 1986.35. For the MoMA competition, see Eliot F. Noyes, Organic Design in Home Furnishings (New York: The Museum of Modem Art, 1941), 12-17, esp. 13.

68 Letter from Nelson A. Rockefeller to Mr. and Mrs. Hans Knoll, 14 December 1946, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Another early Planning Unit project was the furnishing of personnel housing

for American troops stationed in Europe. The Planning Unit did not have specific

locations for the units, but was told only whether they would be located in hot or cold

climates.69 Hans Knoll was responsible for securing business for the company and

probably obtained the contracts. Florence Knoll recalled that:

After the war the United States had money trapped in various countries. They wanted to spend the money they had—anyway, the United States had money to spend in Germany, France, Italy. They decided to use that money by using it for housing projects for U.S.I.S. people all over the world.. .Probably Hans Knoll went down to Washington and sniffed it out. I’m not quite sure. He was very good at that. He was an entrepreneur and a great salesman. He had a tremendous personality, lots of charm.70

The Planning Unit was responsible for the design specifications for the

housing, including furniture, fabrics, and color schemes. The Knolls set up production

sites in Europe to meet the needs of the project. These factory sites were the

foundation for the international satellites, known collectively as Knoll International.

The redesign of the offices of Columbia Broadcasting System in 1952-54 gave

the Planning Unit the publicity that propelled it into the consciousness of large

numbers of architects and designers. Like many Planning Unit projects, the impetus

came from a singularly charismatic and committed client. In this case, it was CBS

69 Cliff 69. In the beginning of 1951, the State Department ordered furnishings for ninety houses of American civil servants in Germany. See translation of Charlotta Heythum, “Ten Years—Knoll International in Germany,” Deutsche Bauzeitung, October 1961, Knoll Archives.

70 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., p. 11-12, Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. President Frank Stanton. When asked about the first Planning Unit job that got the

company widespread publicity, Knoll answered that:

Probably the most significant one was not a very big one, but it was the CBS job in the old building. It was before Frank [Stanton’s] death.. .He was very unique. He gave us a chance.. .he found us. He was very hip. He knew what was going on. He was watching us, I think. He called us. Things like that— 71 small jobs with high visibility, which led to many other jobs.

Frank Stanton was an extraordinary client, passionate about modem design and

intimately engaged in the design process. He also served as a tireless advocate for the

Planning Unit, recommending its services to his colleagues. The CBS job was

published in a variety of magazines, spreading awareness of the Knoll firm and the

Planning Unit throughout the architecture and design community.72

Hans Knoll unexpectedly died in a car accident in Havana in November 1955.

Upon his death, Florence Knoll ran the company independently. She continued to

commission furniture and take on Planning Unit projects. In 1959, she sold the

business to Art Metal, remaining in the position of Director of Design.

The Planning Unit: A Profile

Until 1951, the New York City showroom was located in a five-story building

at 601 Madison Avenue with the Planning Unit in the penthouse.73 In 1951 the

71 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., p. 6, Knoll Archives.

72 The 1952-54 CBS job was featured in “Offices on Both Coasts by Knoll,” Interiors 114 (January 1955): 60-61; “CBS Offices by the Same Designer,” Architectural Forum 102:1 (January 1955): 134-39; and“CELA (Communications, Electronics, Automation): Communications,” Progressive Architecture 37 (May 1956): 108-9.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. showroom and Planning Unit moved to larger premises in a skyscraper at 575

Madison Avenue.74

A schematic plan shows how the Knoll office appeared circa 1956-57. (Fig. 7)

While the arrangement might have changed over the course of the life of the Planning

Unit, this plan shows a snapshot of its appearance while the Planning Unit worked on

such projects as Connecticut General, the Rockefeller Institute, and the Golden Door

restaurant at Idlewild Airport. The entrance to the Planning Unit had mail slots for

couriers to pick up and drop off drawings and blueprints. (Fig. 8) The Planning Unit

also had extensive areas for fabric storage to be used in design and paste-up

production. (Fig. 9) Florence Knoll’s office was situated on the southwest comer of

the Planning Unit area and her secretary sat in a bay outside her office. Planning Unit

designers sat at desks lining the south and east walls. (Fig. 10) The desks had tilting

drafting surfaces and were separated by pandanus-wrapped Douglas fir panel dividers

that created a small studio for each designer.75 Storage for each designer was located

behind swinging doors in the desk behind him. The last desk on the east wall was for

drawing storage. There were typically seven or eight designers on staff assisted by

two draftsmen that sat in a separate office. A large worktable stood at the center of

the Planning Unit. Various other members of the firm sat in the Planning Unit at the

73 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 27.

74 “Walls of Air, Color, Light and Water ” Architectural Forum 94:5 (May 1951): 138-43.

75 “Furniture Showrooms in New York,” Architectural Review 110:660 (December 1954): 383-88.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. time, including the Planning Unit Manager and Director of Knoll Production. The

schematic plan and description of Planning Unit staff show just how small the

operation was. While the Planning Unit expanded as its reputation grew, it always

remained a small organization, comprising about twenty staff members, with Florence

Knoll overseeing each project.

In that era the design community was intimate and a small team could manage

each project.76 The concept of modem corporate interior design was not a foregone

conclusion, and the staff of the Planning Unit had to work hard to find willing clients

and execute interiors that fulfilled the Planning Unit’s and the client’s expectations.

Former Planning Unit designer Vincent Cafiero recalled that the business of corporate

interior design was a constant stmggle to convince clients, design furniture for new

problems, and finish the project on time and on budget.77

Each country that had a Knoll subsidiary also had a Planning Unit that offered

interior design services. A 1961 article on Florence Knoll explained that “there is a

Planning Unit attached to each foreign branch, and these occasionally refer problems

to Mrs. Knoll.”78 A different 1961 article about Knoll’s operations in Germany

76 Mae Festa, assistant to Florence Knoll c. 1950-52, author interview, telephone, 4 August 2004; Neville Lewis, author interview, telephone, 19 September 2004. While Neville Lewis never worked at the Planning Unit, he hired several Planning Unit designers to work at his firm Neville Lewis Associates, including Allan Denenberg and Lew Butler.

77 Vincent Cafiero, author interview, telephone, 6 June 2004.

78 Cliff 70.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mentioned that the head office and Planning Unit were located in Stuttgart. The79

international reach of the firm allowed its influence to spread not just within the

United States, but throughout Europe and South America.

One of the primary purposes of the Planning Unit was to teach architects and

their clients how to use modem furniture. The showrooms were open only to

architects and members of the trade, who could bring their clients to see the available

furniture and services. The architect-client had the option to buy the components of

the modem office directly from the showroom or could contract with Florence Knoll

and the Planning Unit to design the interior. When the client elected to hire the

Planning Unit, they embarked on an extensive needs-assessment, installation and

maintenance program. (Fig. 11) Designing a Planning Unit interior was not simply a

requisition-fulfillment process, but involved frequent interaction between the

Planning Unit staff and the client.

The process of assessment, proposal, and installation comprised five distinct

steps. The first step was the assessment phase, which consisted of a survey of client

operations, including interviews with executives and supervisors and a study of work

and traffic flow, culminating in a preliminary space plan. The second step was called

the first phase of interior design which, in consultation with the architect and client,

consisted of establishing the character of the interiors, determining space divisions,

constructing scale models, and selecting furniture. The third step was the architectural

construction phase, which involved determining the lighting, plumbing, fixtures,

79 Heythum, October 1961, Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. location plans for technical devices, and selection of colors. The fourth step was

called the second interior design phase, which entailed finalizing furniture and

accessories and developing custom designs. The fifth step was the supervision and

maintenance phase, which included installing furniture and fittings and supplying

fabric and furniture charts to the client for inventory and maintenance purposes. The

systematic process of each job attested to Florence Knoll’s extraordinary

organizational and communication skills and her ability to work with the client and

designers to produce a complete interior.

While the process was always a collaborative effort, Florence Knoll was

ultimately responsible for the vision, development, and accomplishments of the

Planning Unit. The work of the Knoll firm was neither rarefied nor perceived as an

artist’s pursuit. The Knoll firm was a business and competed to sell its products and

earn a profit like any other. But Florence Knoll’s career as a designer benefited from

the fortunate coterie of designers that surrounded her. She used her skills and her

extensive contacts to find clients and develop a portfolio of work that distinguished

the Planning Unit from its counterparts. The Planning Unit evolved out of the vision

of Florence Knoll and the demand for interiors appropriate for modem buildings. The

essence of the Knoll Planning Unit can be conveyed through design process and

design methods. Three specific design elements—the paste-up, the differentiated

desk, and the Knoll look—distinguish the Planning Unit’s approach to the design of

corporate interiors and highlight the central problems facing the Planning Unit

designer.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Interior Design Paste-Up and the Clothing of Modern Architecture

The client presentation method, known as the ‘paste-up’ in Planning Unit

parlance, originated in the early days of the firm and continued to be used until its

eclipse. Among the Florence Knoll Bassett Papers is a paste-up of a dress that Loja

Saarinen made for Florence Knoll for Christmas 1935. (Fig. 3) A figure with arms

outstretched appears on a sheet of black cardboard. The white chalk lines that

delineated her face and hands have deteriorated, but the pink pigment that colors her

lips and finger nails retain their color and outline her silhouette. A gold foil bodice

with a high neck covers her torso and a green silk swatch evokes a full skirt. Both

gold foil and green silk simulate how the dress will ultimately look. This paste-up

even featured the specialized pleating created by drawing a thread of the fabric

through the material, highlighting the lengths to which Loja Saarinen went to

approximate the actual appearance of the dress. 8fl The paste-up is an extraordinary

work of art in its own right, revealing details about design process and showing the

dress at an embryonic stage in its development.

Clothing designers and set designers commonly used the paste-up to sketch

out their ideas, but Florence Knoll introduced its use in interior design. Knoll recalled

that “[she] actually started to do this at the Architectural Association in London &

developed it further when the Planning Unit was formed at Knoll.” In 81the interior

8fl Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 5, Folder 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. design paste-up, textile swatches and wood chips adhere to the respective surfaces to

suggest a sense of the texture and color of the whole. Several paste-ups survive in the

Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, including those for Hans Knoll’s 1951 office at the

Knoll headquarters in Manhattan, Frank Stanton’s 1954 CBS office in Manhattan and

Jack Heinz’s office at the H.J. Heinz Company in Pittsburgh. The Jack Heinz office

paste-up shows his entire suite, including the office and conference room with lounge

area. (Fig. 12) Florence Knoll noted that:

This paste up of Jack Heinz’s suite was a typical presentation made for plans or on models. It was extraordinary how small swatches of fabrics & wood could convey a feeling of the space. The general scale used was %” but in special plans we worked in larger scale. I always felt the need to employ this system that eventually was used by design offices as a standard.82

One of the challenges of corporate interior design was to convey how the finished

office would look to the client. The paste-up gave the non-designer a sense of the

three-dimensional space that could not be achieved with a drawing, and had a

multimedia component that further heightened the experiential authenticity of the

model. The paste-up was also suited to interior design because it emphasized the

color and texture of textiles.

It’s not a coincidence that Florence Knoll borrowed the paste-up method from

the field of clothing design, as the fabrics of clothing and the upholsteries of interior

design are similar in production, appearance, and use. Clothing, in its most basic

concealing function, covers the body and prevents inspection by unwanted parties.

81 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 5, Folder 20.

82 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The role of interior design is to cover the building—not necessarily to conceal it—but

to improve its usability. Clothing and interior design also share a display function,

whereby they communicate ideas based on their appearance.

Both clothing and interiors could warm spaces and make them habitable. Art

historians and design theorists have long noted the similarities between clothing and

interior design.83 Austrian architect and theorist Adolf Loos identified the role of

interiors to ‘cozy up’ the building. He explained, with not a little sarcasm, the role of

interior decorations.

[The rooms] were naked and cold.. .the upholsterer was brought in again; he hung up coziness by the yard on the doors and windows.

Loos’s conception of interior decorations were primarily those things that are made of

textiles—draperies, carpets, and upholstered furniture. He stressed the material

similarities between clothing and interior decorations, and separated those

transportable, ephemeral textiles from permanent, immovable architecture. The

textile-based interiors eliminated the rooms’ chilliness, making it warm and

inhabitable, much like clothing warms the body. In Loos’s formulation, the textiles

became clothing, cloaking the building, but essentially separate from it.

83 See Gottfried Semper, “Four Elements of Architecture” and “Style: The Textile Art” in The Four Elements o f Architecture and Other Writings, translated by Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Adolf Loos, “Bekleidungskunst,” Neue Freie Presse, 4 September 1898, translated as “The Principle of Cladding,” Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897-1900 (Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 1982).

84 Adolf Loos, “Interiors: A Prelude,” Neue Freie Presse, 5 June 1898, in Spoken into the Void, p. 20.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Through the paste-up, Florence Knoll likened clothing, which conceals and

adorns the body, to interiors, which conceal and adorn architecture. In the Planning

Unit conception, clothing and interiors were for both protection and decoration. They

adorned bodies, whether human or architectural, by covering them with colors and

textured fabrics. The clothing metaphor falls short in some respects—for humans,

clothing is accessory; the human body can function without clothing, but clothing

contributes to agreed-upon social conventions about bodily presentation. By contrast,

a building without interiors is incomplete. It may be able to carry out its sheltering

function, but does not reach its full potential without the installation of interior design

fittings. And further, clothing is primarily made of textiles—woven, knitted, or felted

cloth. While the elements of interior design include textiles in upholstery and wall

and floor treatments (particularly emphasized in the paste-up), interior design

incorporates many other elements as well, including lighting, partitions, and ceiling

and wall materials. The interior design of the building is integrated with its

mechanical structure, forming an inextricable bond, thus enhancing and completing

the building. The fabric of clothing and the fabric of interior architecture may differ,

but their covering and adorning functions are related.

Florence Knoll and the Knoll Planning Unit envisioned interior design as a

humanizing process. Planning Unit jobs were usually modifications to already-built

or already-planned spaces. The word ‘modification’ emphasizes the layered nature of

interiors on buildings and the way that Planning Unit interiors improved upon and

complemented architectural structure. The privileging of texture and color in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. paste-up tacitly acknowledged that architecture alone can be bare, cold, and

dehumanizing, pointing to the critical role of interiors in creating habitable space.

Architecture may be celebrated at a remove for its boldness, elegance, or sensitivity

to its environment, but its ultimate test, as a usable structure, was inevitably

determined by how well its interiors served its occupants.

The Planning Unit’s project was to make modem buildings usable by modem

people. The Planning Unit declared its purpose in the statement at the beginning of a

promotional brochure:

Since its inception the Knoll organization has endeavored to design and produce furnishings and interiors appropriate to contemporary architecture Df and suited to the changing needs of modem living.

The charge to assess the contemporary needs of the modem client extended beyond

the interior design to specific furniture forms and their arrangements in space. As new

needs called for novel furniture forms, Florence Knoll and the Planning Unit

redesigned several office furniture types, including chairs, sofas, tables, and desks. In

particular, the development and differentiation of the desk exemplified how the

Planning Unit responded to office needs.

The Knoll Desk as an Index o f Office Hierarchy and Modernity

Before World War II, the typical executive office was furnished with a drab,

drawers-to-the-floor desk.86 This desk helped define office hierarchy by endowing the

or “Knoll Associates, Inc. Knoll International, Ltd.” oversize brochure, c. 1961, p. 3, Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. executive with visual weight and heft, but designers at the Planning Unit realized that

executives did not require a complicated storage system of files and drawers or fussy

paneled construction. The Planning Unit substituted a table desk and storage

credenza, which communicated that the executive was not consumed with tedious

work, but that the table was clear for conferences and projects of earnest importance.

For secretaries, the Planning Unit designed a flexible secretarial desk with two

pedestals that allowed many permutations of storage solutions. Florence Knoll

employed the existing convention of using furniture as an indicator of status. But both

the Knoll executive and secretarial desks also drew on the language of functionalism,

incorporating smooth surfaces, geometric contours, and materials that connoted

efficiency and modernity. Size and luxurious materials distinguished the executive’s

desk from the secretary’s. The distinction of the Knoll desk line was its use of modem

forms to convey enduring standards of office protocol.

The secretarial desk, like all Planning Unit furniture, was conceived spatially.

(Fig. 13) Unlike the standard desks with boxy proportions available from office

furniture manufacturers, each element of the Knoll secretarial desk was articulated.

The legs, pedestals, and top were distinct, expressed parts assembled into a whole as

if pieces in a puzzle. Shadow lines between planes differentiated each element. The

pedestal did not rest on the ground, but attached to the frame of the desk, giving the

whole a lighter appearance. The desk was a skeletal structure on which functional

86 Virginia Lee Warren, “Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modem Design,” The New York Times, 1 September 1964, p. 40.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. parts (pedestal, pencil drawer, etc.) were hung. It was critical that each element of the

desk was expressed, so that its structure was made bare to the user. This vocabulary

of functionalism was a central feature of modem design. In Architecture and its

Interpretations, J.P. Bonta used functionalism to demonstrate the semiotic potential

of architecture. He showed that functionalism was an ideology with an aesthetic

component, exemplifying glass curtain wall buildings that were perceived as

functional and efficient structures but often failed to produce habitable environments.

The buildings seemed efficient because the materials of steel and glass had such

associations. The Knoll secretarial desk used geometric forms and steel components

in much the same way.87

Functionalism has long been a feature of design rhetoric, but in this period it

connoted specific forms and materials.88 Steel or chrome, and design choices such as

geometric forms and unadorned surfaces referenced this functionalist aesthetic. The

Knoll secretarial desk expressed its functional design by putting the armature of the

furniture in plain sight and by using contrasting materials or colors to differentiate

parts. The top was differentiated from the pedestal, which was differentiated from the

base, unlike the casket desks that concealed their stmcture under layers of paneling.

While the concept of the desk did not significantly change—it was still a post and

87Architecture and its Interpretation (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1979), 19.

88 Larry L. Ligo, The Concept of Function in Twentieth-Century Architectural Criticism (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1984), 8.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. lintel design—the Knoll desk used a metal frame and plain veneered surfaces to

convey that it efficiently used materials and was conducive to office work.

The increased availability of rationed materials after World War II broadened

the choices open to desk designers. In the late 1940s, Knoll secretarial desks were

constructed entirely of wood with round tapering legs. (Fig. 14) In the 1950s, as

commissions got larger and metals were no longer restricted to military uses, the

Planning Unit began to incorporate new and more durable materials such as steel and

chrome into the desk bases. The metal bases contrasted with the wood pedestal and

top, suggesting an affinity of material and function.

For large commissions, Knoll contracted with furniture manufacturers such as

Hillside, General Fireproofing, and Art Metal to produce secretarial desks. The

specifications for the 1952 Florence Knoll-designed 1500 and 3500 series desks for

Knoll International survive and offer insight into the concerns and stipulations of the

OQ designer. (Figs. 15a and 15b) This desk was available in four standard top sizes with

either wood or square steel tube legs. The pedestals were made of particle board with

various veneers. The drawer sides and backs were made of solid, lacquered oak and

drawer fronts had shaped finger grips of solid walnut along their vertical edges. The

top drawer included a removable oak pencil tray and metal cylinder locks that

89 Each international subsidiary of Knoll was run as an independent unit responsible for production and marketing. All secretarial desk specifications come from a pamphlet produced for the international subsidiaries called “Knoll International, Specifications and Sales Points for Florence Knoll Desks— 1500 & 3500 Line Desks—Designed 1952,” Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. allowed all drawers to be locked simultaneously. The drawers were suspended from

steel full-extension slides on nylon rollers.

The desk was designed to be flexible in order to meet a variety of office

needs. The desk specifications demonstrated the lengths to which the Planning Unit

went to provide an individualized product for the client, noting that there were 69

variations possible, including zero, one, or two pedestals, with each pedestal having

either two or three drawers, as well as an optional pencil drawer and kneehole panel.

The desk could also be ordered with a secretarial return which accommodated a

typewriter and a storage pedestal. There was a careful juxtaposition between metal

and wood in desk construction. The frame was made of square tube metal painted

black. The top and attached components were made of wood. The implication of

support elements made of stronger metal and the functional elements made of wood

revealed a concern for the affinity of material and function, and allowed a delightful

juxtaposition of color and texture.

The key to the secretarial desk, regardless of its various permutations, was its

architectonic form. The desk was not regarded as a three-dimensional box into which

use and storage functions were fitted, but as planes in space. The skeletal structure of

the desk consisted of a horizontal plane supported by two vertical planes. The need

for additional working space and storage required that the pedestals and returns be

integrated into the post and lintel structure. The additions and accretions did not

obscure the basic structure or even merge with it, but remained discrete. These

conspicuous visual elements contributed to the desired aesthetic of functionalism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Office design was an opportunity to reinforce office hierarchy, and the same

desk would certainly not be appropriate for a secretary and an executive. A Knoll

advertisement in the November 1962 issue of Architectural Forum asked “what is a

Knoll desk?” The answer was:

A Knoll desk may not be a desk at all, but a beautiful rosewood oval table that converts any office into a conference room. It may be an L-shaped design of teak with generous storage space. It may be rectangular or round, boat-shaped or oval. The Knoll collection offers an impressive choice of fine woods and functional features, developed to satisfy individual tastes and needs.90

The Knoll executive desk was made of luxurious materials and tailored to the needs

of the client. It met the requirements of executive work, which was as much about

communicating professionalism as it was about adequate space and storage. Florence

Knoll and the Planning Unit reconceptualized the Knoll executive desk, designing it

for work involving less manipulation of paper and more personal interaction.

Florence Knoll wrote that:

Having the storage in a cabinet freed the desk to become a conference table. The desks emerged in many shapes—round, oval, boat-shaped and oblong according to plan.91

Since conferences were a key aspect of daily work, the desk-as-conference-table was

a practical solution. The storage function of the desk moved to a credenza that stood

behind the executive. Now that the desk was a table, there was more freedom in its

design, so it appeared in a variety of shapes and materials.

90 Knoll advertisement, Architectural Forum 117:5 (November 1962): 142-3.

91 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 21.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Knoll executive desks were remarkable not only for their reconceived

structure, but for the way they shifted the use of space in executive offices.

Traditionally desks were oriented in a comer of the office on a diagonal. But

beginning with Nelson Rockefeller’s 1946 office, the Planning Unit placed the desk

perpendicular to the wall to conserve space. Hans Knoll’s 1951 office at the New

York headquarters of Knoll Associates popularized this move. (Fig. 16) Florence

Knoll recalled that:

The 12’x l2 ’ office was designed for Hans Knoll in 1950 when we moved to 575 Madison and space was at a premium. The parallel or L shaped plan made sense, and it saved square footage. This convinced our corporate clients who were satisfied to move from the diagonal plan with a solid desk in front and a table behind.92

Moving the desk parallel to the wall was not only more space-efficient, but

demonstrated that the executive was aware of contemporary office design. A 1964

article on Florence Knoll in The New York Times began:

Once upon a time virtually every big business executive thought.. .that his office had to have pale green walls and that his heavy, drawers-to-the-floor desk had to be placed cater-comered. Then along came a woman who showed the executive that they could be just as impressive against a background of neutral or even white walls sometimes with one wall in a strong primary color, and that their status would not be impaired if they moved their desks to a logical, space-saving four-square position.93

The 1954 office of CBS president Frank Stanton included a table desk with marble

top, steel cruciform legs, and a black painted steel brace that served as the horizontal

92 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 21.

93 Warren 40.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. support between the legs.94 (Fig. 17) Built into the wall behind the desk was a “flying

bridge” of controls and storage made of oiled teak. Jettisoning the traditional desk and

adopting the table in its place was not an immediate choice for most corporate

executives. But as Planning Unit projects proliferated and were emulated by other

interior designers, this aesthetic slowly made its way through the corporate world.95

The differentiation of the desk according to status in the office hierarchy

exemplified one way that the Planning Unit fulfilled its client needs. Planning Unit-

designed furniture furthered the goals of the client company and met the aesthetic

standards of a modem office. The design rules about discrete parts, contrasting

textures and a shadow line between elements that guided the development of Knoll

furniture applied equally to the overall design of the office interior. A number of

fairly simple mles collectively formed what became known as the Knoll look—the

identifiable visual aesthetic associated with Knoll furniture and Planning Unit

interiors.

The Knoll Look

The place to see the essence of the Knoll look was in the furniture showrooms

Florence Knoll explained that:

94 “CBS Offices by the Same D e sig n e r Architectural Forum 102:1 (January 1955): 138.

95 On the transformation of the executive office, see Rita Reif, “Old is Out and New is In for Businessmen’s Desks,” The New York Times, 2 December 1974, p. 53.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. [The showrooms] were important because we had to do a lot of convincing. At the time there were very few clients who were interested in these ideas. They thought they had to have traditional furniture from Grand Rapids [Michigan], These showrooms were what really convinced them.96

The vision of the Knoll firm was the recognition of the need for modem furniture for

the home and office. The showrooms were critical because they disseminated the

Knoll look, illustrated how to use the newly available furniture, and provided

decorating ideas to architects and clients. The New York showroom at 601 Madison

Avenue opened in 1948, and Knoll subsequently opened showrooms in Dallas, San

Francisco, Milan, Paris, and Los Angeles, among other locations. An article in the

March 1957 issue of Architectural Forum about “The Knoll Interior” was not about a

Planning Unit project, but three newly opened showrooms. The writer affirmed that:

The Knoll interior is as much a symbol of modem architecture as Tiffany glass was a symbol of the architecture of Art Nouveau. But this modem symbol can be specified by the architect, copied by the decorator and calculated by the efficiency expert.97

Showrooms could clearly express the nature of the Knoll look because they did not

have programming limitations. The showroom was essentially a blank canvas in

which Florence Knoll and the Planning Unit could create compositions of furniture,

textiles, and color.98 The showrooms also offered Florence Knoll the possibility to

96 Paul Makovsky, “Florence Knoll Bassett: The Conversation,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97.

97 “The Knoll Interior,” Architectural Forum 106:3 (March 1957): 137.

98 The showrooms were never fully free of limitations, as the architecture of the building always impacted design possibilities and in some cases, such as the 1951

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. experiment with new materials and configurations without the risk of installing

untried ideas in permanent offices. Although the Planning Unit was primarily

engaged in office interior design, the showrooms very rarely included model office

interiors." They were predominantly filled with living room or lounge arrangements

that showcased the sculptural and now iconic furniture by Mies van der Rohe, Eero

Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Richard Schultz, and others.

When Florence Knoll talked about the showrooms, she said that “the object

was to maintain a Knoll identity with different solutions in interior architecture.”100

The showroom spaces varied a great deal, from a single-family house in Dallas to a

low-slung retail building in Los Angeles. Different sites presented different design

challenges, from an abundance of light in the New York showroom to a paucity of

light in the stall of the Chicago Merchandise Mart. In most showrooms Knoll

concealed the building structure beneath interior architecture, but in the case of the

San Francisco showroom, she tried to preserve and showcase the nineteenth-century

architectural details.101 Despite the variety of inputs, Knoll created spaces that clearly

expressed the Knoll look. Notwithstanding the design challenges, the showrooms

New York showroom, became a real impediment. See Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 30 and Series 5, Folder 12.

99 As the Planning Unit became well-known for its offices, particularly after the 1957 Connecticut General project, office displays began to appear in Knoll showrooms. In the 1960 Los Angeles showroom, there was a model conference room with a Florence Knoll boat-shaped table. See “New Showroom for Knoll Associates, Inc., in Los Angeles, California,” Arts and Architecture 77 (November 1960): 14.

100 Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 1, p. 25.

101 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., p. 10, Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. presented an opportunity to experiment and have fun creating interiors. Florence

Knoll admitted that “I think the showrooms were more fun than anything else.” 1 0 9

The Knoll look constituted a code or a language of signs that communicated

corporate modem design. The visual language complemented the multitude of glass

curtain wall buildings erected in cities after World War II. This corporate modernism

drew on the associations of the modem period with progress and efficiency while

acknowledging the need for a humanized interior environment. The semiotic

language embedded in the Knoll look conveyed a fashionable, humanized

functionalism. The Knoll look referenced the functionalist aesthetic in its preference

for neutral colors and geometric shapes, but displayed an equal concern for human

habitability in its vibrant color accents, rich textures, and playful forms. The

modernism espoused in the showrooms and by the Planning Unit did not simply

signal progressiveness and technological advancement, but also a visual

1 rjo sophistication and sensitivity to human needs.

An assemblage of components came together to form the visual code of the

Knoll look. The complete code only existed when all components were present, but

102 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., p. 10, Knoll Archives.

103 Architectural semiotics did not develop until the late 1960s, after much of the work of the Planning Unit had been completed. While it sought to describe the future of architecture, architectural semiotics also described the past. It showed how the built environment was full of symbols pregnant with meaning, and allowed us to use semiotic tools to analyze Planning Unit interiors. See Charles Jencks, “The Architectural Sign,” in Signs, Symbols and Architecture, eds. Geoffrey Broadbent Richard Bunt and Charles Jencks (Chichester and New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980), 71-118.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. each component was separable. This is the important distinction between a Planning

Unit-designed showroom or interior and the many interiors that are inspired by the

Knoll look. The showroom or Planning Unit interior incorporated all the components

of the Knoll look, while the imitative interior drew on some components, but rarely

all. The showrooms and Planning Unit interiors evidenced a fuller vision,

incorporating subtler elements such as carpets, window treatments, wall hangings,

and art. Conversely, an imitative interior might include furniture from the Knoll line

or conspicuous use of primary color, but these did not add up to the comprehensive

quality of the Knoll look.

Three distinct characteristics of the Knoll look include the use of furniture

from the Knoll line, a color scheme of primarily black, white and beige with selective

use of vibrant primary color, and shadow lines between planes to differentiate

separate elements.

From the outset, selling Knoll furniture was the primary purpose of the firm

and the unstated purpose of the Planning Unit. The furniture developed during

Florence Knoll’s tenure ran the gamut from the whimsical 1948 Womb chair and

ottoman by Eero Saarinen to the refined elegance of the 1951-53 Diamond chair by

Harry Bertoia to the geometric precision of Florence Knoll’s c. 1955 side tables. The

showroom arrangements often found their way into Planning Unit projects. For

example, the classic paired Barcelona chairs which were on display in the 1951 New

York showroom (Fig. 26) appeared in the San Francisco showroom, as well as in

Frank Stanton’s 1954 CBS office, the lobby of Connecticut General, and countless

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. other commissions. The configuration of Florence Knoll sofa, lounge chair, and

coffee table was found in the San Francisco showroom in 1956. (Fig. 18) The next

year, a nearly identical configuration showed up in Frazar Wilde’s Connecticut

General office. (Fig. 19) But while some configurations appeared again and again in

Planning Unit interiors, other Knoll furniture never made the transition from

showroom to project. Harry Bertoia’s wire furniture, Eero Saarinen’s Grasshopper

and Womb chairs, and Pierre Jeanneret’s Scissor chair appear in Knoll showrooms

and Knoll advertisements, but were rarely found in Planning Unit jobs.104 It was not

an issue of cost. The showroom furniture was not significantly more expensive than

the preferred Planning Unit furniture; in fact sometimes a comparable object was

less.105 The appearance of particular forms in showrooms but not in offices related to

modes of acceptance in residential and corporate interiors. Like showrooms,

residential interiors offered more latitude in color choice and design whimsy. Offices

could not be as playful, demanding more functional-looking furnishings. As a result,

104 For a selection of Knoll advertisements, see Larrabee 110-115.

105 In a comparative study of lounge chairs, the Florence Knoll designs that appear often in Planning Unit jobs cost more than other lounge chairs from the Knoll line. The 1958 price list shows that variations on the Florence Knoll lounge chair cost between $275 and $295. In the same year, the Harry Bertoia small diamond chair cost $79 and the large diamond cost $116. The Eero Saarinen Womb chair was not included in the 1958 price list, but interpolation between its 1953 and 1961 prices would approximate it at $280. And by comparison, the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair, whose price is only available on request in 1958, was $350 in 1951, so we can assume that it only appreciated by 1958.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the Knoll furniture line was unofficially bifurcated between residential designs and

office designs.106

The proliferation of table desks and lounge areas contributed to the decidedly

domestic nature of the Knoll office. 1 (Y1 While the Planning Unit proscribed • certain •

forms because of their whimsicality, the furniture within the Planning Unit purview

still referenced the domestic environment. In Jack Heinz’s office at the H.J. Heinz

Company, the conference table and red upholstered Eero Saarinen side chairs could

be mistaken for a dining room ensemble. (Fig. 20) Both Frank Stanton’s office and

Frazar Wilde’s 1957 Connecticut General office had lounge areas with sofas, chairs,

and a coffee table that would have hardly been different from those found in the

executive’s living room at home, or, for that matter, in a living room ensemble in a

Knoll showroom. And Planning Unit-designed offices not only specified furniture

models and arrangements, but also corresponding textiles for upholstery, carpet and

window treatments, office accessories, and sometimes even the art for the walls. The

preponderance of texture and color in a Planning Unit office recalled living rooms

rather than business offices and referenced domestic life rather than a formal business

106 Allan Denenberg, author interview, telephone, 23 January 2005 and Vincent Cafiero, author interview, telephone, 14 February 2005.

107 The affinity of executive offices and living rooms was not unique to this period. Angel Kwolek-Folland has shown that executive offices in the Victorian era often resembled middle class parlors. See Angel Kwolek-Folland, “The Gendered Environment of the Corporate Workplace, 1880-1930,” in The Material Culture o f Gender, the Gender o f Material Culture, eds. Katharine A. Martinez and Kenneth L. Ames (Winterthur, Del.: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997), 157- 180.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. environment. The Planning Unit walked a fine line between office interiors that

looked like professional yet comfortable workspaces and offices that seemed too

much like home.

Florence Knoll designed an overwhelming majority of the furniture specified

by Planning Unit, and that furniture contrasted dramatically with the vibrant and

sculptural designs by commissioned architects. She intended her furniture to blend in

and fulfill needs not met by the existing furniture in the line. But her furniture designs

are notable for their own unique forms. They typically have sleek silhouettes and

rigorous geometries. A 1955 sofa design has a rectangular back and seat on square

steel legs. (Fig. 21) The subtle square tufting echoes the rectangular theme. In some

cases, her designs are directly inspired by the work of her mentor Ludwig Mies van

der Rohe, such as her lounge chair derived from his 1929 Barcelona chair. While

Florence Knoll privileged vibrancy, texture, and contrast in her interior designs, her

furniture designs were pared down to the absolute minimum components.

Though she objected to being called a furniture designer, Florence Knoll

designed a great deal of furniture. In the 1961 Knoll price list, nearly half of all

designs are attributed to her. Her designs formed the backbone of the Knoll line, even

if they were not the most prominently displayed or advertised. But in an interview she

made plain that she did not consider herself a furniture designer.

People ask me if I am a furniture designer. 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 designed sofas.. .Anonymous. That’s what I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. considered myself. I did it because I needed the piece of furniture for a job and it wasn’t there, so I designed it.108

Knoll attributed her occasional designing to need, not artistic expression. But the

consistency and clear vision evinced in her furniture forms indicate that it was not

simply a matter of creating furniture that would do the job. Her furniture was meant

to look unremarkable, but the sheer intention of its anonymity informs what

unremarkability meant to her. For her, anonymity meant geometric form and carefully

juxtaposed materials. The aesthetic was not empirically anonymous; it was just what

Florence Knoll thought an anonymous aesthetic would comprise. Organic shape,

spontaneous line, and color were reserved for the dynamic, architect-designed

furniture in the Knoll line. She said:

It was really people like Saarinen and Bertoia who created very sculptural pieces. Mine were architectural.109

Knoll’s comparison of her furniture to architecture elucidates its spare form. Her

furniture designs embodied the transformation of architecture into furniture,

translating the structure and language of the modem building into a human-scaled

object. The 2510 coffee table has square tubular legs supporting a marble slab,

conjuring a rudimentary post and lintel structure. (Fig. 22) The functional

requirements of a table, to provide a horizontal surface to support objects, are

adequately met with little excess structure or material. The 2544 credenza is a

1 HR Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, n.d., p. 9, Knoll Archives.

109 Paul Makovsky, interview with Florence Knoll Bassett in “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 97.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. variation on the coffee table with a rectangular case inserted between the legs and top.

(Fig. 23) The structure of a large case balanced on thin peripheral columns recalls

Mies’s Seagram Building and Corbusian pilotis. In both cases the furniture is

architecture, miniaturized.

Some of Florence Knoll’s furniture was directly inspired by Mies’s furniture

designs. The profile of the 2551 lounge chair closely resembles the profile of Mies

van der Rohe’s 250 Barcelona chair in its reclining position and tufted upholstery.

(Figs. 24 and 25) The only notable difference is the parallel bar steel legs and

crossbar on Florence Knoll’s design rather than the elegant intersecting flat bar steel

legs on the Mies version. The resemblance of form and function, and the similar uses

to which both lounge chairs were put in Planning Unit interiors suggests that Florence

Knoll designed the 2551 chair as a less expensive and less conspicuous version of the

Barcelona chair.

Mies’s Barcelona chair provided inspiration for the lounge chair design, but

was also a springboard for several suites of related furniture, including lounge chairs,

settees, and sofas. The designs used the same reclining profile and were available

with or without arms, with either parallel bar or tubular steel legs, and in a range of

upholsteries.110 These forms appeared repeatedly in Planning Unit projects and

contributed to the characteristic consistency of interiors and showrooms. Their

conventional form brought the more visually dazzling elements of the interior into

110 The Knoll model numbers for these suites are 51/52/53, 51W/52W/53W, 55/56/57, 55W/56W/57W, 2551/2552/2553, 2555/2556/2557, 65/66/67, and 65A/66A/67A.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. relief. As a self-described architect, Florence Knoll’s occasional furniture designs

reflected her architectural training. But her guise as an interior designer combined her

architectural sensibility with a concern for human habitability, which made the

meticulous shapes of her furniture compatible with the more dynamic and vigorous

interior designs. Her furniture forms provided uniformity and consistency, allowing

the sculptural furniture, colorful upholstery, and accents to sing.

After the use of iconic furniture, the second distinguishing feature of the Knoll

look was the color scheme of black, white, and neutral colors with conspicuous

primary color accents. Neutral colors often appeared in the furniture upholstery,

carpets, and wall treatments. The primary color accents highlighted the screens,

selected furniture upholstery, and flower arrangements. The best example of the

integrated color scheme was the entrance to the 1951 New York showroom. (Fig. 26)

Paired brown leather Barcelona chairs sat opposite a matching brown leather

Barcelona sling ottoman separated by an X-frame table with transparent glass top, all

on a beige carpet. Behind this vignette of black and brown shades was a large red

panel that functioned as a room divider and color contrast. The double-height San

Francisco showroom employed the same formula. (Fig. 18) A red pillow placed on

the sofa rhymed with a bowl of red flowers on the table. A furniture group in the

middle ground included two white Florence Knoll sofas, a blue Saarinen Womb chair

and ottoman, and a Florence Knoll parallel bar round table. A small green and small

blue pillow lay on the couch and a bowl of yellow flowers sat on the table. In each of

these groupings, the palette of white, black, or tan dominated, but was relieved by

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. deliberately placed color contrasts. And behind both of these vignettes, almost

overwhelming them, were two large rectangular colored panels, seemingly inspired

by a Mondrian painting or the paneling on the 1949 Eames House in Pacific

Palisades. They doubled as functional dividers and decorative elements that set off

furniture groupings. All of the color accents are notably discrete, rarely blending and

often standing distinctly from the other elements of the group.

The final distinguishing trait of the Knoll look was the use of a shadow line

between planes to separate elements—a design feature whose use extended from

individual furniture designs by Florence Knoll to architectural elements. More than

anything else, the use of the shadow line typified Knoll design and reinforced other

design principles such as the predominant use of geometric shapes and discrete color

fields. The shadow line separated and defined. It was visible in the Florence Knoll

sofa at the junction between the metal base and the front upholstered panel. (Fig. 21)

It was visible in the Florence Knoll side table between the metal base and the marble

top. (Fig. 22) It was visible in architectural elements, such as the San Francisco

showroom, where the large colored panels did not hang flush with the building frame

but were slightly removed to reinforce the distinction between structure and interior.

(Fig. 18) And it was visible in Frank Stanton’s 1965 CBS office where the shadow

line separated the oak wall panel from the white ceiling. (Fig. 27) The shadow line

marks a central tenet of Knoll design—a conception of interior design as space

planning, not furniture arranging. The primary unit of any interior design was space,

and the designing of the interior involved allocating, demarcating, and defining space.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The shadow line is the evidence of deliberately apportioned space and the careful

juxtaposition of elements within space. It demonstrated that the Planning Unit

approached each job as a blank canvas and that each decision was deliberately made

according to the demands of the space and the client brief.

A cohesive look requires uniformity and consistency, and the elements of the

Knoll look contributed to similar interiors across projects. Architect Wallace Harrison

said that “when you hire Knoll to do an interior you know what you’re going to get,

and that’s rare in a creative person.”111 The uniformity of the Knoll look fueled its

popularity and recognition in the design world and made it a fertile source for

imitation and quotation. The mission of the Planning Unit was to create an interior

style that could be easily recreated by other designers. There was never any desire to

hold the monopoly on the Knoll look, but to provide an example for designers who

could recreate it by buying products from the Knoll line. Perhaps no greater indicator

of the success of the Knoll look was its imitation by interior designers.

And imitated it was. The evidence of contemporary architecture and interior

design periodicals shows that interior designers and advertisers lifted the Knoll look

to sell their wares.112 In an advertisement for LOF window glass from the July 1960

edition of Architectural Forum, the cartoon interior included paired Barcelona chairs

111 Cliff 71. 112 While I acknowledge that the evidence of magazine advertisements does not reflect any actual office arrangement, I contend that it speaks for the prevalence and shared cultural understanding of the Knoll look. It reflects a consciousness of the symbolism underlying the Knoll look, and the desire on the part of other interior designers and advertisers to partake of that symbolism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in front of a Barcelona table, a Saarinen Womb chair with ottoman, and a Bertoia

Diamond chair.113 (Fig. 28) The color scheme consisted of neutral shades in the

Barcelona chair upholstery, carpeting, and draperies and primary color accents in the

Womb and Diamond chair upholsteries. The company was selling glass, not furniture

or interior design services, but the use of Knoll furniture and the Knoll look lent the

product increased cache. An advertisement for ColorLine partitions from the

December 1959 edition of Architectural Forum explicitly emulated the Knoll look as

well.114 (Fig. 29) This typical office had a cantilever-topped wood desk on a metal

frame and a storage unit behind. Office furniture included the red upholstered

Saarinen 71 armchairs available from the Knoll line. The colorful room partitions

promoted in the advertisement functioned like the color field room dividers in the

New York and San Francisco showrooms, providing space differentiation and color

contrast. The black frames of each partition functioned like the shadow line by

distinguishing each architectural element. The Knoll look transcended the Planning

Unit, and was appropriated by architects, designers, and marketers to endow their

products and designs with the same ideas about humanized, sensitive functionalism.

The Knoll look became a Planning Unit trademark and came to stand for

postwar corporate design. Through a combination of auspicious clients, astute

113 LOF Glass advertisement, Architectural Forum 113:1 (July 1960): 173.

114 ColorLine Partitions advertisement, Architectural Forum 111:6 (July 1959): 17.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. promotion and publication, and skilled staff, the Planning Unit transformed a concept

of modem design into a ubiquitous reality.

CBS: A Total Work o f Art

The example that most typified the collaborative nature of Planning Unit work

and the essence of Planning Unit design was the 1961-65 interior design and space

plan for the Eero Saarinen-designed Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. As the last project of Florence Knoll’s tenure at

the Planning Unit, it stands as a culminating example of the Planning Unit’s work.115

Just a few weeks before he died, Eero Saarinen met with Florence Knoll to

discuss the interior design of the building.116 It is not clear whether Saarinen intended

to commission the Planning Unit to do the interiors all along, or if Saarinen contacted

Knoll when he learned of his imminent mortality due to a brain tumor. Presumably he

would have preferred to design both the architecture and interiors as he did for the

General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, but the news of his illness

forced him to find a partner to complete the building, and he turned to his longtime

friend and colleague Florence Knoll. The interior architects Carson, Lundin and Shaw

had divided the building into five-foot modules which were the basis for the interior

115 In 1958, Florence Knoll married Harry Hood Bassett and moved to Miami, returning frequently to New York to oversee operations of the company and Planning Unit projects.

116 “Interior Design of C.B.S. Building, 51W52, New York f Architect and Builder 16 (July 1966): 12.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. plans. The Planning Unit was responsible for the interior design of the third to the

35th floors.117

With the building designed and interior modules set up, the Planning Unit’s

job was to select color schemes, furniture, fabrics, and art for the building. 118 There

were several types of spaces to be designed, from secretarial areas to executive suites.

It was important that the design was coherent, but the Planning Unit wanted to avoid

an entirely uniform building. To this end, the Planning Unit used prominent color

accents to distinguish each floor. A group of sketches of elevator lobbies illustrated

how color was used to differentiate the interiors on each floor and how furniture

selection and arrangement were the consistent link among them. (Fig. 30) The

Planning Unit covered the walls of the elevator banks with a textured gray fabric that

echoed the gray granite piers of the exterior and used off-white tile for the floor of

general work areas. They introduced color in the reception areas through the walls,

accessories, and art.119 The reception area furniture, upholstered in both neutral and

vibrant tones, gave each floor consistency, although some employees found the

spaces disorienting and difficult to navigate.

117 Patricia L. Conway, “Design at CBS,” Industrial Design 13 (February 1966): 49- 51.

118 Mildred F. Schmertz, “Distinguished Interior Architecture for CBS,” Architectural Record 139:7 (June 1966): 129-34.

119 “Interior Design of C.B.S. Building, 51W52, New York,” p. 13.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A black and white photograph of a paste-up of an unidentified floor of the

CBS skyscraper survives in the CBS archives and shows how a typical floor was laid

out. (Fig. 31) Services consumed the central core of the building and functional space

ran along the perimeter, forming what Saarinen liked to call a ‘square doughnut.’ The

five-foot module was apparent in the exterior granite-faced piers that alternated with

dark glass. The floor contained small walled offices with adjacent secretarial spaces

and conference rooms. A handful of executive offices were lavishly appointed with

built-in television screens, conference room, dining room, kitchen, and washroom.

Decorative accents in each office included meticulously arranged flower vases and 1 90 vibrant, geometric paintings which complemented the interior. In his drive to create

standardized interiors, Frank Stanton insisted that as much office machinery be built-

in and inconspicuous as possible. Light switches were mounted on doorjambs and air

conditioning vents were installed in the ceiling around lighting fixtures. Telephones,

televisions, phonographs, and other equipment were mounted out of sight underneath

specially designed cabinets.121 Executives sat at marble or walnut-topped table desks.

One can see the Planning Unit’s hallmark domestication and humanization of

office space in the CBS job. This impression of the living room-inspired office was

heightened by the use of textiles and finishes, such as bronze velvet wallcoverings,

beige linen curtains, and French walnut paneling in President Frank Stanton’s office.

120 “C.B.S. ‘Eye Zooms In On New Home,” The New York Times, 12 September 1965, Rl.

121 “Interior Design of C.B.S. Building, 51W52, New York,” p. 13.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Stanton’s office on the 35th floor represented a focal point of the CBS building and

Planning Unit design. (Fig. 27) Stanton sat at a pedestal desk with a bronze base and

oak top. Behind him was a low wood and marble-topped credenza for storage. He sat

on a Mies van der Rohe Brno chair, produced by Knoll. The lounge area included

Florence Knoll sofas and a coffee table. Stanton’s office suite also featured a

reception room, pantry, dining room installed with Tiffany stained glass windows,

dressing room, and bathroom. With all of its amenities, Stanton’s office resembled an

apartment in the penthouse of the skyscraper.

As the final project before Florence Knoll’s retirement, and unprecedented in

scope, the CBS skyscraper exemplified the refinements and techniques of Planning

Unit design. The contemporary architectural press hailed CBS for its total design,

noting the way that interior design, color coordination, and graphics were

integrated.122 The project exemplified the position in which the Planning Unit often

found itself—obligated to work within existing architectural constraints. While the

Planning Unit would ideally be involved from the first planning stages, the reality

more often was that it was brought in to design the interior of an already-existing or

already-designed building. The achievements of the Planning Unit included its ability

to work within constraints and to capitalize on compromised situations. But most of

all, the CBS project stood as evidence of the transformation in corporate interior

design realized by the Planning Unit.

122 Schmertz 130 and “Total Design on a Grand Scale,” Life Magazine, (1964), n.p. and Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 4.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The End o f the Planning Unit

The Knoll look underwent very few modifications between the early projects of

the 1950s and the latest in the mid 1960s. Planning Unit designers made some

refinements for specific projects and certain furniture forms were developed to meet

client needs, but it was not a case of an evolving office design approach that

culminated in a more perfect and efficient solution. The Knoll look sprung nearly

full-formed from the imagination of Florence Knoll. Projects could be assessed and

solutions assigned according to determined formulas—a lounge area here, an

executive office setup there. As the needs of a typical office were rarely unique, a

predetermined approach led to similar solutions to design problems.

Likewise, the makeup of the Planning Unit changed very little over the course

of its life, not expanding when client demand grew, but maintaining a project

schedule that its small staff could manage. In fact, between 1960 and 1965, while

working on the interior design and space plan of the CBS skyscraper, the Planning

Unit took on only a few new projects in order to meet the demands of CBS.123

This consistency of staff and approach ensured that the Planning Unit turned

out high-quality projects and offered its clients dependable services. But the

reluctance to change posed a problem of succession when Florence Knoll retired.

Florence Knoll married Harry Hood Bassett in 1958. They met while Knoll was

designing the interior for Bassett’s First National Bank of Miami. After they married,

123 Vincent Cafiero, author interview.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Knoll moved to Miami, signaling her desire to extricate herself from the company.

She remained active at the Planning Unit to complete the jobs that were in progress.

During her gradual withdrawal, she accepted two special commissions—the executive

offices of Look Publications and the CBS skyscraper. She met Gardner Cowles, the

publisher of Look magazine, through Frank Stanton and perhaps did the Look offices

as a favor to him. In an undated note from Stanton to Knoll, Stanton wrote that he

“visited Look yesterday and I know just how Mike feels about his beautiful office.

The entire job is typically attractive and most elegant with touches of delightful

charm such as the mattress ticking. Will try to call you to talk further about our Sixth

Avenue plans.”124 The second special job was, of course, the CBS skyscraper on

Sixth Avenue to which Stanton referred in his note. Stanton was an old client of the

Planning Unit and Knoll felt obliged to make the new CBS headquarters her swan

song. With the completion of the CBS project in 1965, Florence Knoll submitted her

official resignation.125 Her life was now in Miami, away from the New York design

community. But she also off-handedly noted that “there are just so many offices one

can do in one’s life and then it’s enough.” Even1 96 she tired of the repetition of the

Planning Unit process and wanted to focus her energies on a new set of problems.

124 Note from Frank Stanton to Florence Knoll, n.d., Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 5, Folder 18.

125 Resignation letter from Florence Knoll Bassett to Mr. W. Cornell Dechert, President, Knoll Associates, Inc., 14 January 1965, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, Series 6.

126 Transcript of interview with Florence Knoll Bassett, p. 15, n.d., Knoll Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While several experienced designers remained in the Planning Unit, the tenor of the

company changed. After Florence Knoll’s departure, Vincent Cafiero described the

company as “a boat that had lost its rudder.”127 A tug of war ensued between the

management and the design staff, and the clear vision of furniture development and

interior design that Florence Knoll had championed got muddled in the struggle. As

increasing layers of management were brought in, the status and influence of the

designers diminished. The backlog of work after the completion of CBS masked the

gradual contraction of the Planning Unit. But as the dust settled, many of the design

staff resigned due to their diminished status in the company. The Planning Unit

eventually closed operations in 1971.128

Conclusion: The Rise o f Florence Knoll

The loss of Florence Knoll, the company’s symbolic leader, meant that

commissions for Planning Unit projects began to dry up. With the full-time retirement

of Florence Knoll in 1965, the company embarked on a new era without any

management that had been present at the creation. The company continued to

manufacture furniture and textiles. Florence Knoll did not have an official role in the

company after her retirement, but did cooperate on several projects, including the

1972 exhibition Knoll au Louvre designed by Massimo and Lela Vignelli. The

127 Vincent Cafiero, author interview.

128 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. exhibition featured over one hundred examples of Knoll furniture displayed in large,

transparent Plexiglas cubes at the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Palais du Louvre

in Paris. She also agreed to be interviewed for the 1981 book Knoll Design by Eric

Larrabee and Massimo Vignelli, which profiled the history and contemporary

ventures of the Knoll company. 1 90

A handful of articles about Florence Knoll appeared between her resignation

in 1965 and the donation of her papers in 1999.130 In 1999, Florence Knoll collected

the documents and papers in her possession and donated them to the Archives of

American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. The donation prompted scholarly 191 interest in her work and several short articles appeared. At the same time, demand

for Knoll furniture began to increase at auctions and design galleries. In 2002, the

White House honored Florence Knoll with the National Medal of the Arts. On the

heels of this publicity, the organization Collab: The Group for Modem and

Contemporary Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented Florence Knoll

with the 2004 Design Excellence Award, which paid tribute to a living designer.

129 See Knoll International, Inc., Knoll au Louvre: Catalogue de I’Exposition au Pavilion de Marsan, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, (Milan: Imprime par Amilcare Pizzi s.p.a., 1971) and Larrabee and Vignelli.

130 “Knoll Without Knolls?,” Interiors 126 (August 1966): 150-57; Joseph Giovannini, “Florence Knoll: Form, not Fashion,” The New York Times, 1 April 1983, p. C12; Maeve Slavin, “Aesthetic Revolutionary,” Working Woman (January 1984): 74-78.

131 “Florence Knoll Bassett Papers,” Archives of American Art Journal 39:1-2 (1999): 59-61; Emanuela Frattini Magnusson, “Florence Knoll, Una Storia,” Abitare (June 1999): 170-77; Paul Makovsky, “Shu U,” Metropolis 20:11 (July 2001): 88-97, 122; and “Modem’s Masters,” Vanity Fair 521 (January 2004): 120-121.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Florence Knoll designed the accompanying exhibition herself. The aim of the one-

room exhibition was to display the range of her designs and to partially recreate two

Planning Unit interiors. Since it was not possible to recreate actual interiors, Florence

Knoll had large color photographs of two Planning Unit interiors generated and

mounted on the wall. She arranged the major furniture elements and accessories of

those interiors in front of the photographs. In this sense, because of space constraints,

Florence Knoll’s designing act was similar to the acts of the many interior designers

who imitated the Knoll look by drawing on select constituent parts, but not all of the

details. For example, she omitted the carpets and wall treatments in the exhibition as

an interior designer might who could evoke the Knoll look with furniture alone. The

constraints of the exhibition demonstrated the ease with which one could imitate the

Knoll look and the potential for dissemination through imagery. In front of a

photograph of an executive office with oval table and credenza she placed an oval

rosewood table and a red upholstered Saarinen 71 armchair. (Fig. 32) In front of a

photograph of a lounge area in the suite of the H. J. Heinz president, she placed a sofa

with colorful accent pillows and a marble-topped coffee table. (Fig. 33) The

exhibition also featured her lounge chair, coffee table, credenza, upholstered bench,

round table, parallel bar table, and brass vase.

After a period of relative obscurity, Florence Knoll has been rediscovered.

Her life’s work, not only the Planning Unit, but also her furniture designs and

contributions to modem textile production shaped the way many people experienced

their offices and homes. Her reach extended across national boundaries to all

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. countries with Knoll showrooms or Knoll dealers. Her legacy of sophisticated and

sensitive design remains a sought-after ideal of design today. The revival of interest

in her designs attests to their resonance beyond their time of production and is part of

a broader nostalgic embrace of the postwar period. Not only Florence Knoll’s

designs, but the multitude of interiors that drew on the Knoll look, attest to its

ubiquity in the modem corporate landscape.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX A: LIST OF KNOLL PLANNING UNIT PROJECTS

Projects from contemporary periodicals

1946 University of Michigan Women’s Dormitory, Ann Arbor John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50. “Furnishing the Dormitory,” Architectural Forum 95:6 (December 1951): 176-79.

Published November 1948 Knoll Associates Showroom, New York City “Spacious but Intimate: Simple but Subtle,” Architectural Record 104 (November 1948): 2-10.

1949 University of Michigan Men’s Dormitory, Ann Arbor John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50. “Furnishing the Dormitory,” Architectural Forum 95:6 (December 1951): 176-79.

Published January 1949 North American Life and Casualty Company, Minneapolis “Office Building—North American Life and Casualty Company Makes a Capital Investment in Minneapolis,” Architectural Forum 90:1 (January 1949): 76-81. “Knoll Planning Unit” list, n.d., Knoll Archives.

Published July 1949 Knoll Associates Showroom, Chicago “Furniture Showroom,” Architectural Forum 91:1 (July 1949): 79-81. Knoll Associates, Inc. brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Published June 1950 Knoll Associates Showroom, Dallas “Outpost in Dallas: Knoll Opens a Lone Star Branch,” Interiors 109 (June 1950): 90- 97.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1950-52 American Embassies in Stockholm, Havana, Brussels “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives.

Published May 1951 Knoll Associates Showroom, 575 Madison Avenue, New York City “Knoll Associates Move Into the Big Time,” Interiors 110 (May 1951): 74-83. “Walls of Air, Color, Light and Water,” Architectural Forum 94:5 (May 1951): 138- 43. “Furniture Showrooms in New York,” Architectural Review 110:660 (December 1954): 383-88.

Published September 1951 El Panama Hotel John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50.

Houston Hospital John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50.

Arkansas Library John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50.

Detroit Bank John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50.

U.S.O. Units John D. Morse, “The Story of Knoll Associates,” American Artist 15:7 (September 1951): 46-50.

Published December 1951 Trinity University Dormitory, San Antonio Ford and Rogers, Architects “Furnishing the Dormitory,” Architectural Forum 95:6 (December 1951): 176-79. Knoll Associates, Inc. brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

1951 Alcoa, Pittsburgh “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Published January 1952 A.L. Aydelott & Associates, Architects Offices, Memphis “Offices,” Progressive Architecture (January 1952): 113-14. “Knoll Planning Unit,” list of Planning Unit projects, n.d., Knoll Archives Press release, n.d., Knoll Archives

Published October 1952 Student Union Building, Ohio State University, Columbus “Recreation Center with Modem Interiors,” Architectural Record 112 (October 1952): 147-53.

Published October 1952 Auto-Owners Insurance Company, Lansing “P/A Interior Design Data: Auto-Owners Insurance Co., Lansing, Michigan,” Progressive Architecture (October 1952): 129.

Published December 1952 Textilien aus U.S.A. exhibition for Smithsonian Institution “Knoll’s Kaleidoscopic Knock-Down,” Interiors 112 (December 1952): 112-15.

Published September 1953 Schlumberger, Ridgefield, Connecticut Philip C. Johnson, Architect “This Small Suburban Administration Building is Four Things to Four Men,” Architectural Forum 99:3 (September 1953): 124-29. Knoll Associates, Inc. brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Published January 1954 Carnegie International Center/Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New York City Harrison & Abramovitz, Goldstone & Abbe, Architects “International Center, New York, N.Y.,” Architectural Record 115 (January 1954): 121-25. “Interior Design by a Consultant,” Architectural Record 115 (January 1954): 126-31. “Offices on Both Coasts by Knoll,” Interiors 114 (January 1955): 60-61. “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Published February 1954 Knoll Associates Showroom, Chicago “Knoll, Chicago: New Tune in the Same Key,” Interiors 113 (February 1954): 46-51.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1954-57 Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Bloomfield Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Architects “Rural Insurance Plant: Connecticut General Take a Tip from Industry, Plans a Horizontal Office Building without Columns or Partitions,” Architectural Forum 101:3 (September 1954): 104-7. “Interiors Contract Series ’56—Offices,” Interiors 115 (January 1956): 78-9. “Insurance Sets a Pattern,” Architectural Forum 107:3 (September 1957): 112-27. “Office Interiors—The Connecticut General Life Insurance Company,” Arts and Architecture 75 (January 1958): 26-7. “The Complete Corporation on a 6’ Module, Proven by Mock-ups,” Interiors 117 (January 1958): 76-85. “The Team Approach,” Industrial Design 5:9 (September 1958): 48-57. “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Published August 1954 Federal Reserve Bank, Detroit Smith, Hinchman & Gyrlls, Architects “This Year’s W o r k Interiors 114 (August 1954): 59. “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Published September 1954 Reception Area/Office, Room, and Models for Tour-Inns, Inc. “Motel Rooms,” Progressive Architecture 35 (September 1954): 140-45.

Published January 1955 Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto Wurster, Bemardi & Emmons, Architects “Offices on Both Coasts by Knoll,” Interiors 114 (January 1955): 60-61. “A Humane Campus for the Study of Man,” Architectural Forum 102:1 (January 1955): 130-33. “The Center for Advanced Study,” Arts and Architecture 72 (February 1955): 16. Knoll Associates, Inc. brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

CBS Executive Offices, 485 Madison Avenue, New York “Offices on Both Coasts by Knoll,” Interiors 114 (January 1955): 60-61. “CBS Offices by the Same Designer,” Architectural Forum 102:1 (January 1955): 134-39. “CELA (Communications, Electronics, Automation): Communications, Progressive Architecture 37 (May 1956): 108-9. Knoll Associates, Inc. brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Savoy-PIaza Hotel, Beirut Elias & Dagher and Edward D. Stone, Architects “Interiors by Five in One Hotel,” Interiors 114 (January 1955): 76-79.

Published August 1955 American National Bank, Austin Keune, Brooks & Barr, Architects “This Year’s Work,” Interiors 115 (August 1955): 68. “Drive-In Bank for Downtown,” Architectural Forum 104:2 (February 1956): 154- 55. Knoll Associates, Inc. brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

1955 H. J. Heinz, Pittsburgh “Additions to the ’57 Varieties to be Tested Here,” The New York Times, 12 October 1958, FI. “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Published June 1956 New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company Corporate Redesign “New Operations, New Face,” Architectural Forum 104:6 (June 1956): 106-12. “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

1957 & 1959 Rockefeller Institute and Detlev Bronk Residence “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

1957 Daimler-Benz “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Published May 1957 Knoll Associates Showroom, San Francisco “Showroom for Knoll Associates, Inc. by Florence Knoll,” Arts and Architecture 74 (May 1957): 22-23. Louise Sloane, “Two Showrooms” Progressive Architecture 39 (July 1958): 137-43.

1958 Golden Door Restaurant, Idlewild Airport, New York “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Published November 1958 Deering, Milliken & Co., New York City Ad for Knoll Planning Unit featuring Deering, Milliken Sales Area, Arts and Architecture 75 (November 1958): 2. “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Published May 1960 First National Bank of Miami “Bank Interiors by the Knoll Planning Unit,” Arts and Architecture 77 (May 1960): 28-9. “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Published November 1960 Knoll Associates Showroom, Los Angeles “New Showroom for Knoll Associates, Inc., in Los Angeles, California,” Arts and Architecture 11 (November 1960): 14-15. “Knoll’s Newest Showroom: Airy and Sun-Dappled Extension of its Southern California Locale,” Interiors 120 (March 1961): 138-9.

Published December 1960 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica “The Perfect, Professional Museum,” Architectural Forum 113:6 (December 1960): 92-95.

1961 Westinghouse “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives Walter McQuade, “The Booming Office Planners,” Architectural Forum (January 1962): n.p.

Published March 1962 Executive Offices, Cowles Magazines, Inc., New York City “Model of Office Planning,” Progressive Architecture 43 (March 1962): 151-57. “Major P.U. Jobs,” n.d., Knoll Archives

Published April 1962 Dow Textile Fibers Division Showroom “Showroom by Knoll Associates,” Arts and Architecture 19 (April 1962): 26.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1961-1965 CBS Offices, 51 West 52nd Street, New York City Eero Saarinen and Associates, Architects “Total Design on a Grand Scale,” Life (1964): n.p. “Saarinen’s Skyscraper,” Architectural Record (July 1965): 111-18. “C.B.S. ‘Eye’ Zooms In on New Home.” New York Times, 12 September 1965, Rl. Patricia L. Conway, “Design at CBS,” Industrial Design 13 (February 1966): 48-57. Huxtable, Ada Louise. “Eero Saarinen’s Somber Skyscraper.” New York Times, 13 March 1966, p. 135. “Distinguished Interior Architecture for CBS,” Architectural Record 139 (June 1966): 129-34. “Interior Design of C.B.S. Building, 51W52, New York,” Architect and Builder 16 (July 1966): 12-15. “A Man’s Home Away from Home—‘It’s the Detailing that Counts,”’ House and Garden (February 1967).

Projects from “Knoll Planning Unit, ” list, n.d., Knoll Archives

Air Transport Command Terminal, Washington, D.C. Charles Goodman, Architect

Andrews Air Force Base Officers’ Club, Washington, D.C. Charles Goodman, Architect Complete installation

Banco de la Construccion, Havana Eugene Albarran, Architect Complete Installation

Bank of the Southwest, Houston Kenneth Franzheim, Architect Offices and public areas complete installation

Baskin’s Department Store, Chicago Holabird & Root & Burgee, Architects

Brazos County Courthouse, Bryan, Texas Caudill, Rowlett & Scott & Associates Complete installation

British Columbia Electric Company, Vancouver Sharp, Thompson, Berwick & Pratt, Architects Executive areas

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chandler’s Shoe Store, Chicago Holabird & Root & Burgee, Architects

Colonial Life Insurance Company, New York Arthur O. Angilly, Architect

Columbia Broadcasting System Television City expansion, Hollywood Pereira & Luckman, Architects Executive offices complete installation

Columbian Country Club, Dallas Complete installation

Commodore Perry Hotel, Austin Kuehne, Brooks & Barr, Architects Guest rooms complete installation

Congressional Apartments, Washington, D.C. Alvin L. Aubinoe, Architect

Crown Cork & Seal Company, Antwerp Executive offices

Dow Chemical Company, Freeport, Texas Administrative building and research laboratory “Knoll Planning Unit” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

Dow Chemical Company, Midland, Michigan Alden B. Dow, Architect Executive offices and biochemical laboratory

E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company, Inc. Offices, New York D. Mortellito, Designer

Florsheim Shoe Stores, New York and Chicago Ketchum, Gina & Sharp, Architects

Foreign Buildings Operations, Department of State American embassy in Havana, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Madrid Housing for U.S. personnel overseas in Europe, Near East, Far East, Africa

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. General Tire & Rubber Company, Caracas Moises Benacerraf, Architect Executive offices complete installation

Governor of Illinois Office, Chicago Shaw, Metz & Dolio, Architects

H.J. Heinz Company, Pittsburgh Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Architects Research laboratory complete installation

H.S. Manchester Company, Restaurant, Madison, Wisconsin Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Architects

Hewitt-Robins, Inc. Executive offices in New York, New York Factory offices in Buffalo, New York

Howard University Dormitory, Washington, D.C. Hilyard R. Robinson, Architect

I. Miller Shoe Shop, White Plains, New York Carson & Lundin, Architects

Illinois Bell Telephone Company, Alton, Illinois Holabird & Root & Burgee, Architects

Irish Tourist Bureau, New York City Michael Scott, Architect Complete installation

Jordan Wines, Toronto John B. Parkin and Associates Complete installation

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey Marcel Breuer, Architect Institute Housing

International Cooperation Administration Housing for U.S. personnel overseas in Seoul, Karachi, Tripoli

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Irmac Construction Company, Toronto John B. Parkin and Associates Complete installation

Lansing City Hall & Police Building, Lansing, Michigan Lee and Kenneth Black, Architects Complete installation

Meadowbrook Country Club, Tulsa Donald Honn, Architect Complete installation

Midland Community Center, Midland, Michigan Alden B. Dow, Architect Complete installation

Ministry of Public Works, Havana Arroyo & Menendez, Architects Executive offices complete installation

National Association of Home Builders, Washington, D.C. Aubinoe, Edwards & Berry, Architects Complete installation of national headquarters

Nelson Rockefeller Executive Offices, New York City Harrison & Abramovitz, Architects

Owens-Illinois Fiberglas Company, New York City Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Architects

Henry Petter Residence, New York City

House of Seagram, Park Avenue, New York Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, Kahn & Jacobs, Architects Executive offices complete installation

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Projects from “Knoll Planning Unit, ” brochure, n.d., Knoll Archives

General Motors Corporation, Detroit Eero Saarinen and Associates Technical Center Office Furniture

Midland Public Library, Midland, Michigan Alden B. Dow, Architect Complete installation

Second National Bank, Austin Kenneth Franzheim, Architect Offices and public areas

Surenco Division, Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation, Houston Bolton and Bamstone, Architects Executive offices and general offices

University of Rochester Women’s Dormitory, Rochester, New York Egger & Higgins in association with Waasdorp & Northrup Entire interior

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 1. Florence Knoll, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 2. Design for a Model House in Michigan, Florence Schust, c. 1932- Copyright Cranbrook Archives, #5428-6

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 3. A three dimensional paste-up of an evening dress, designed by Loja Saarinen for Florence Knoll Bassett, 1935, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 4. “View from Garden,” Design for a House, Florence Schust, 1939, Copyright Cranbrook Archives #5467-3

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 5. Armchair, designed 1945, for the Rockefeller Family Offices, Rockefeller Plaza, New York, New York Florence Knoll Bassett (designer), b. 1917 Wood, replacement upholstery Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Gift of Laurence S. Rockefeller (CAM 1985.35) © Florence Knoll Bassett

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 6. Nelson Rockefeller office by Knoll Planning Unit, 1946, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to M

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Fig. 7. Schematic plan of Knoll Planning Unit office, c. 1956-57

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 8. Knoll Planning Unit entrance, 575 Madison Avenue, New York, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 9. Knoll Planning Unit fabric storage, 575 Madison Avenue, New York, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 10. Desks for Knoll Planning Unit designers, 575 Madison Avenue, New York, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SI » PLANNING DM T - $28 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK 22, N, Y. - MURRAY HILL 8-7900 M

OUTLINE OF SERVICES AVAILABLE

1-SPACE REQUIREMENTS munications, air-conditioning, plumbing] and the t-Survey and study of client operations. cheeking of shop drawings. 2-Graphic end written analysis of client's space require 5—Selection of all paint colors, wall, floor, and ceiling ma ments, terials, and the preparation of finishing plans and sched 3-Consultationon selection of accommodation from avail ules, and color sample charts. able possMBtias. 5-INTERIOR DESIGN [SECOND PHASE] 2-SPACE ALLOCATION 1-Final selection of wood types for walls and furniture, 1-Surwy of personnel and equipment, and approval of veneer flitches. 2 - Interviews with executives and department supervisors. 2-Seleelion of furniture types and development of special 3-Study of inter-departmental relations, work and traffic furniture designs,such as eonfermoe tnhW, flow, to satisfy special conditions or individual preferences. 4-Prelimiaaty space plan. 3 -Study of all special equipment and machinery used, in cluding communication, accounting, and filing equip 3 -INTERIOR DESIGN { F I R S T PHASE] ment, and recommendations for their functional and 1—Establish character of interiors in consultation with unobtrusive placement and design. architect and client 4-Cost breakdowns and presentation of models, mounted 2—Determine space division type* [masonry, piaster, plans, perspectives, and krgB material samples. screens, panelling, glass, etc.]. 5 -Where special furniture is to be used in sufficient mul $~Gonstruction of scale study models of areas or entire tiples, mock-ups of individual items, or of entire rooms, Moot. are constructed. 4-Stady of materials in the model for proportion, color 6-Survey and inventory of existing furniture suitable for and texture. re-use, and consultation on refinishing and placement 5- .Preliminary furniture layout and fabric selection. in new location. tWSoordmatioa of Interior and exterior materials with the 7-Consultation and selection of carpeting, and study and architect where such relation affects the building or the coordination of all accessory items, such as; desk equip interior. ment, art work, and framing, plants and plant contain

4—ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTION ers, food service equipment [china, glassware, cutlery, l-Efevatioa studies with sufficient detailing to alow us to etc.] for employee and executive dining facilities. secure realistic construction bids. 6-SUPERVISION AND MAINTENANCE 2~a-~L%hting layout and fixture selection; 1-Ccntinuous consultation with architect, engineers and b--Location plans for switches, outlets, thermostats, tele contractors during the design and execution of the work. phones; 2-Inspection of construction in the shop and in the field. o-Physical aspect of air-conditioning grilles; 3-lnstallation of all furniture and furnishings. d-Selection of plumbing fixtures. 4~-The supplying of fabric and furniture charts and list 3-Evfduation of contractors’ bids and consultation on the ings to the owner, for inventory and maintenance pur* awarding of contracts for interior work. poses, and location plans and instructions for proper 4-The checking of engineering drawings [electrical, com handling by maintenance staff.

Fig. 11. “Outline of Services Available,” Knoll Planning Unit, n.d., Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. no. IM3W desk-dimensionsi 69''x30"x2r'H or 5S"*32"x29"H Knoll Associates. Inc., 575 Madison typewriter platform; 48"* 19"*26"H Florence Knoll design

Fig. 13. No. 1543W Desk, Florence Knoll, c. 1952, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 14. Knoll secretarial desk, c. 1940s, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. KNOLL INTERNATIONAL

SPECIFICATIONS AND SALES POINTS FOR FLORENCE KNOLL DESKS

IS M & 3500 LINE DESKS - DESIGNED 1952

22£ . ... SALES POINT

Top to be X 1/4" thick 5 ply lumber cots plywood. Lumber cope construe lion 1.:; reeve expensive The core to be of stave core construction. Cora to be .more stable end stronger. Oryirj-, is very poplar or equally dense and stable species, kiln dried important: lessens effuse of humidity 52-7% moisture content. - variations and makes the top more stable. The top is the most important element in the design. Everything depeads on it.

PEDESTAL Pedestals to have sides, back and drawer fronts Pedestals arc glued and clsEped in specie of 3/4" thick particle board with veneer faces of jigs which make it impossible to be off selected grain and color. Top and bottom to be of square, Corners; are jointed and glued wax' 1/2" thick chip core, Edges of side to be veneered. special splines for rigidity at.d extra glueing surface.

DRAWER Drawer fronts to have solid walnut core edge for Solid walnut drawer cages for optimum was shaped finger grips; along ooth vertical edges. Top to drawer veneers selected from scran flitch be veneered. Drawer sides and back to be 1/2" thick for uniform look. Oak interiors are usee solid oak boards wxth 1/4- oak platform bottom. All for excellent wearing, good looking inter o a k clear lacquered. ors. Extra strong drawers achieved by dov 1 cirawers to have special tumbler cylinder locks tailing drawer fronts to solid oak boards tiw.ock all drawers in pedestal simultaneously. Complete flexibility of drawer space and ■meet metal lock cover 1/8" thick tempered hardboard use of letter or legal site file drawer. j'.iiicions, white lacquer finish. Top drawer to have Quick changing legal or latter sice file removable solid oak double"pencil tray. d raw er. File drawer to be adjustable for legal or letter Full extension slides make all inaida spa s ic e . u sa b le . File drawers to be suspended rrom steel full exten- Nylon rollers for quiet operation. Drawer aioa slides with nylon rollers. fronts dove-tailed to sides for extra durability.

BASE 4 legs to consist of 7/8" special square-#16 S p e c ia lly squared s t e e l tu b in g is made u'o cold rolled steel tubing, especially for Knoll to make extra snoot! jo nts secured with special mechanical connectors. mechanical connections. Special mechanic;, Aoj. feet - blit, molded sq. NIC. (self aligning). connection makes parts easy to take apart Each pedestal to be fastened to base with two 1/4"- and replace. Special nylon feet align 2u hex head machine screws and washers into rivnuts themselves with the legs. Design and inserted into each tubular steel leg thru l/8"x5/8" structural advantage achieved by attac'cir flat bat steel spacers. Pedestals fastened to top pedestal directly to top: Desk can be uss w ith 1112 f l a t head wood screw s. with or without kneehole panel. Ail com ponents are completely flexible.

’f

1509 1503

Fig. 15a. Specifications and Sales Points for Florence Knoll Desks, 1500 & 3500 Line Desks - Designed 1952, p. 1, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BA.3XC DESK CONFIGURATION

tr>03 1554 double 2 drawer pedestal desk pedestal on right metal base 35od 3503 2 draw or double pedosul on r.om pedestal

1S1D table with pencil drawer oil right matal base 1545 platformright hand S= 2 drawer moledpedestal base

35i 0 table wun penou drawer on right wood base

dint3546 ;r. 2 drowor pedes i-u wood base

1565 right hand drawsplatform, 2 1 1 memi r * i

35G5

tdrawer t t tpadastai l . wood baso

Fig. 15b. Specifications and Sales Points for Florence Knoll Desks, 1500 & 3500 Line Desks - Designed 1952, p. 2, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 16. Hans Knoll office at Knoll Associates, 575 Madison, New York, c. 1951, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 17. Frank Stanton office at Columbia Broadcasting System, 1954, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 18. San Francisco showroom of Knoll Associates, 1956, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 19. Frazar Wilde office at Connecticut General, 1957, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 20. Jack Heinz office at H.J. Heinz Company, c. 1955, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 21. 1205S2 Settee, Florence Knoll, 1954, Courtesy Knoll Media Library

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 22. 2510 Side Table in Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modern, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Florence Knoll, c. 1955 Copyright Julie Marquart 2004-2005

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 23. 2544M Credenza, Florence Knoll, Courtesy Knoll Media Library

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 24. 2551 Lounge Chair, Florence Knoll, c. 1955, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 25. 250 Barcelona chair, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929, Courtesy Knoll Media Library

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 26. New York showroom of Knoll Associates, 575 Madison Avenue, 1951, Courtesy Knoll Archives

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 27. Photograph of the entrance view from inside Frank Stanton’s office at Columbia Broadcasting System, 1964, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, 1932-2000, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 28. Advertisement for LOF window glass, Architectural Forum 113:1 (July 1960): 173, Courtesy Pilkington North America, Inc.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 29. Advertisement for ColorLine partitions, Architectural Forum 111:6 (July 1959): 17.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. a^auaXimu>&u. ce>l«.(ttmAdU#

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 31. Floor model of the CBS Building (Black Rock) at 51 West 52 Street, New York, New York, April 20, 1964, Courtesy CBS Photo Archive

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 32. Exhibition shot, Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modem , Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 17, 2004 - April 10, 2005 Copyright Julie Marquart 2004-2005

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Fig. 33. Exhibition shot, Florence Knoll Bassett: Defining Modern, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 17, 2004 - April 10, 2005 Copyright Julie Marquart 2004-2005

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY