Florence Knoll

Florence Knoll Bassett (née Schust) was born in the United States in 1917.
She studied architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and worked with the great names of the Bauhaus, such as Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.
Florence KNOLL continued her architectural studies under the direction of Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
In 1941, she met Hans Knoll and began working together as an interior designer. The company set up a production unit in Pennsylvania.
Hans and Florence married in 1946 and the company was renamed Knoll Associates.
Florence created a revolutionary department within the company, the Planning Unit, which enabled the company to meet the needs of its customers by encompassing interior architecture, design, production, textiles, graphics and advertising.
The company also opened its first showroom in New York at 601 Madison Avenue, with one floor housing the Planning Unit.
In 1949, a textile division was created. It was headed by Eszter Haraszty, a Hungarian-born designer. This unit enabled Knoll to develop its own textiles, thus being able to better meet customer expectations.
During this period in the second half of the 1940s, many great design names were produced by Knoll. These included the Grasshopper chair and the Womb chair by Eero Saarinen and the Ciseaux chair by Pierre Jeanneret.
In 1948, Knoll acquired the rights to reproduce furniture designed by Mies van der Rohe, including the famous Barcelona chair.
In the early 1950s, the Planning Unit's solutions attracted a number of large American companies; Knoll was able to provide them with a real visual identity: this became known as the “Knoll style”.
The company continued to grow: new showrooms were opened (Chicago, San Francisco) and factories were set up in Europe (France, Germany). During this period, Knoll grew to become one of the market leaders.
In 1955, Hans Knoll died in a road accident in Cuba.
Florence Knoll takes over the company. In 1956, Eero Saarinen creates the Tulip Chair for the company. This chair is a success and contracts to furnish the premises of large companies continue to flow in.
In 1957 the company was commissioned to fit out the First National Bank in Miami, whose director Florence married the following year.
In 1959, Florence KNOLL sold the company to Art Metal Construction Company. She nevertheless remained president of the Knoll divisions and director of design and studies at Art Metal.
She finally resigned from the company in 1965.