Source: Steve Davidson, 785-532-5992, sdavidso@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Diane Potts, 785-532-1090, potts@k-state.edu
Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008
K-STATE COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND DESIGN OFFERING EXHIBIT OF CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY KNOLL FURNITURE
MANHATTAN -- "Knoll," an exhibit of classic and contemporary furniture, is on display through Friday, Feb. 8 in the Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning and Design's Chang Gallery in Seaton Hall.
The gallery is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
Pieces designed by Florence Knoll Basset, Harry Bertoia, Isamu Noguchi, Jens Risom, Frank Gehry and Eero Saarinen are included in the exhibit.
The origins of Knoll Associates, a prominent U.S. furniture manufacturer and distributor, go back to the New York showroom of the Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company, established in 1938 by German-born Hans Knoll. Producing furniture by many leading 20th-century designers, it became closely identified with Modernism and the image of corporate interiors in post-World War II America. In the second half of the 20th century, the company produced many classic designs from the 1920s and 1930s by Mies Van Der Rohe, Marcel Breuer and others.
Knoll was the son of a furniture maker. After a period in Britain in the second half of the 1930s working with Tom Parker as the Parker-Knoll furniture design partnership, he emigrated to the United States in 1937, establishing a new company with a factory in Pennsylvania. He worked closely with the Scandinavian designer Jens Risom, who produced chairs, tables, and other items for Knoll in 1941. Two years later, Cranbrook trained architect-designer Florence Knoll joined the company and took on responsibility for the planning unit, marrying Hans Knoll in 1946. Together, in the same year, they founded Knoll Associates, opening a showroom on Madison Avenue in New York. The company became H.G. Knoll International in 1951, then Knoll International in 1955, two years after Hans Knoll's death in a car accident.
Florence Knoll ran the company from 1953 to 1965, during which time it expanded considerably. Over the following decades furniture designs were commissioned from many leading international designers, including Tobia Scarpa, Gae Aulenti, Richard Meier, Ettore Sottsass, Ross Lovegrove and Frank Gehry.
The exhibit is made possible by Knoll Inc., New York, N.Y., with assistance by Knoll Inc. of Kansas City, Mo.