MID-CENTURY

MODERN
M O DERN
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHARLES AND RAY EAMES 4 32 EERO SAARINEN
EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR AND OTTOMAN 6 34 TULIP COLLECTION
EAMES ALUMINUM GROUP CHAIRS 8 36 WOMB LOUNGE CHAIR AND OTTOMAN
EAMES MOLDED PLYWOOD CHAIR 10 38 EXECUTIVE CHAIR
EAMES MOLDED PLASTIC ARMCHAIR 12
EAMES ELLIPTICAL TABLE 14 40 GEORGE NELSON
42 NELSON COCONUT CHAIR
ARNE JACOBSEN 16 44 NELSON MARSHMALLOW SOFA
EGG CHAIR 18
46 ISAMU NOGUCHI
EERO AARNIO 20 48 NOGUCHI TABLE
BALL CHAIR 22
50 LE CORBUSIER
LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE 24 52 LC2 COLLECTION
A COLLECTION OF FURNITURE CLASSICS FROM THE BARCELONA CHAIR 26

GREATEST DESIGNERS OF THE OF THE MID-CENTURY ERA 54 VERNER PANTON

BY JIMMY MORRISSEY
FLORENCE KNOLL 28 56 PANTON CHAIR
FLORENCE KNOLL LOUNGE COLLECTION 30

3
 CHARLES AND RAY EAMES
W
ith a grand sense of adventure, Charles and
Ray Eames turned their curiosity and boundless
enthusiasm into creations that established them
as a truly great husband-and-wife design team. Their
unique synergy led to a whole new look in furniture.
Lean and modern. Playful and functional. Sleek,
sophisticated, and beautifully simple. That was and
is the “Eames look.” That look and their relationship
with Herman Miller started with molded plywood
Charles and Ray achieved chairs in the late 1940s and includes the world-
their monumental success renowned Eames lounge chair, now in the permanent
by approaching each project collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
evolved over time, not overnight. As Charles noted
about the development of the Molded Plywood
Chairs, “Yes, it was a flash of inspiration,” he said,
“a kind of 30-year flash.” With these two, one thing
always seemed to lead to another. Their revolutionary
work in molded plywood led to their breakthrough
work in molded fiberglass seating. A magazine
contest led to their highly innovative “Case Study”
house. Their love of photography led to film making,
including a huge seven-screen presentation at the
Moscow World’s Fair in 1959, in a dome designed
by their friend and colleague, Buckminster Fuller.

the same way:

Does it interest and intrigue us?
CAN WE MAKE IT BETTER?
WILL WE HAVE “SERIOUS FUN” DOING IT?
They loved their work, which was a combination of
art and science, design and architecture, process
and product, style and function. “The details are
not details,” said Charles. “They make the product.”
A problem-solver who encouraged experimentation
among his staff, Charles once said his dream was
“to have people working on useless projects. These
have the germ of new concepts.” Their own concepts
Graphic design led to showroom design, toy
collecting to toy inventing. And a wooden plank
contraption, rigged up by their friend, director
Billy Wilder for taking naps, led to their acclaimed
chaise design. A design critic once said that this
extraordinary couple “just wanted to make the world
a better place.” That they did. They also made it a
lot more interesting.

4 5
 EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR AND OTTOMAN
HERMAN MILLER • 1956
Who doesn’t recognize the Eames lounge chair and
ottoman? It lives in museums like MoMA in New York
and the Art Institute of Chicago, in stylish interiors
everywhere, and as a tattoo on a devotee’s arm.
It has been the subject of documentary films and
books. It even has its own fan website. Calling it
va classic is an understatement. It’s the quintessential
example of mid-century design—elegant and
profoundly comfortable too.
The first Eames lounge chair and ottoman was
made as a gift for Billy Wilder, the director of
“Some Like It Hot,” “Irma La Douce,” and “Sunset
Blvd.” The heritage of the chair goes back to the
molded plywood chairs pioneered by the Eameses
in the 1940s. Charles Eames said his goal for
the chair was that it be “a special refuge from the
strains of modern living.” The first lounge chair and
ottoman produced by Herman Miller, in 1956, made
6 CHARLES AND RAY EAMES
its public debut on Arlene Francis’s Home show, a
predecessor of the Today show. Commenting on the
unique design, Charles Eames told Francis, “We’ve
never designed for a fashion, and the Herman Miller
furniture company has never, ever requested that we
do pieces for a market.” During the interview, a short
film was shown in which a man--Charles described
him as “a typical Herman Miller employee”--
assembled and disassembled the lounge chair,
showing how simple the design was.
Francis ended the segment by quoting something
she said she had read about Charles and Ray:
“The Eameses’ desire to move freely in a world of
enormous and unlimited possibilities is combined with
a very accurate sense of discrimination and taste. It’s
an ability to select among the unlimited possibilities
and return considerable richness to the world.”
Starting at $3,899 • hermanmiller.com
7
 EAMES ALUMINUM GROUP CHAIRS
HERMAN MILLER • 1958
Among the buildings Eero Saarinen designed in
Columbus was J. Irwin Miller’s home. Saarinen
wanted a high-quality seating product for outdoor
use at the home and asked Charles and Ray
Eames to develop one. The Eameses accepted the
challenge. Known for their honest use of materials,
the Eameses constructed their chairs with cast
aluminum and a seat frame that would support a
stretched synthetic mesh. The seat-back suspension
they developed was a major technical achievement
and represented a departure from the concept of the
chair as a solid shell.
The Aluminum Group chairs were made for indoor
use in 1958, and they have been in continuous
production ever since. The original mesh was
discontinued shortly after its introduction in favor
of fabric and leather, ribbed at 1 7/8-inch intervals
for a clean, refined appearance. In 1969, the
Eameses extended the original design by adding
plush, individually upholstered cushions. They
8 CHARLES AND RAY EAMES
named these the Soft Pad chairs. The chairs’ simple
lines, innovative use of materials, and suspension
comfort have kept the Aluminum Group and Soft
Pad chairs among the most popular seating choices
for offices and homes.
It’s a trick only Charles and Ray Eames could pull
off: Chairs designed in 1958 as outdoor seating
still look classic and contemporary in 21st century
interiors. The chair’s clean, curvilinear lines
enhance any décor and work well in your home
office, dining area, and living room. Available in
fabric or leather, these Eames chairs are equipped
with an innovative suspension that creates a firm,
flexible “sitting pocket.” It conforms subtly to your
body’s shape and maintains your comfort. With an
aluminum frame and base, the chair is strong, yet
lightweight and easy to move. Earth-friendly, too:
made of 67 percent recycled materials and 90
percent recyclable at the end of its useful life.
Starting at $1,749 • hermanmiller.com
9
 EAMES MOLDED PLYWOOD CHAIR
HERMAN MILLER • 1946
Designers Charles and Ray Eames established their
long and legendary relationship with Herman Miller
in 1946 with their boldly original molded plywood
chairs. The aesthetic integrity, enduring charm, and
comfort of the chairs earned them recognition from
Time magazine as The Best Design of the 20th
Century. Time called the design “something elegant,
light and comfortable. Much copied but never
bettered.” (A locomotive came in second.)
The story behind the Eames molded plywood chairs
makes clear just how big a role imagination and
serendipity play in design. In the early 1940s, when
Charles Eames was working on MGM set designs,
he and his wife, Ray, were experimenting with
wood-molding techniques that would have profound
effects on the design world. Their discoveries led to
a commission from the US Navy to develop plywood
splints, stretchers, and glider shells, molded under
heat and pressure, that were used successfully in
World War II.
10
When the war was over, Charles and Ray applied
the technology they had created to making
affordable, high-quality chairs that could be mass-
produced using dimensionally shaped surfaces
instead of cushioned upholstery. When they found
that plywood did not withstand the stresses that
occurred where the chair seat and back met, they
abandoned their original single-shell idea in favor
of a chair that had separate molded-plywood panels
for the back and seat. The process eliminated the
extraneous wood needed to connect the seat with
the back, which reduced the weight and visual
profile of the chair and established a basis for
modern furniture design. Sculpting a seat and back
to fit the contours of the human body, they designed
a truly comfortable chair that’s suitable
for businesses and homes.
Starting at $679 • hermanmiller.com
CHARLES AND RAY EAMES 11
 EAMES MOLDED PLASTIC ARMCHAIR
HERMAN MILLER • 1948
Several models of the molded plastic chairs, including
the armchair, were designed as entries in a contest
sponsored by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
The “International Competition for Low-cost Furniture
Design” was intended to spur the development of
well-designed, low-cost furnishings for the post-war
housing boom. The introduction to the competition’s
catalog put it this way:
“To serve the needs of the vast majority of
people we must have furniture that is adaptable
to small apartments and houses, furniture that
is well-designed yet moderate in price, that is
comfortable but not bulky, and that can be easily
moved, stored, and cared for; in other words,
mass produced furniture that is planned and
executed to meet the needs of modern living.”
Following its introduction at the MoMA exhibit,
the armchair was chosen as the first chair to go
into production because mass producing it presented
12
the most extensive tooling challenge. Development
took about three years, and our initial 1950
production run was 2,000. These chairs had shells
made from fiberglass in polyester resin. Herman Miller
changed the composition to a more environmentally
responsible material—100 percent recyclable
polypropylene, dyed throughout so the colors are
integral and remain vibrant even after many years.
The armchair was first offered with the rocker
base and two others that are no longer in production.
The “Eiffel Tower” base came later, after a lot of
experimentation with steel rod construction and
stability spacers. Over the years, Herman Miller
has worked at finding ways to improve the chair
bases, to make them more stable and durable and
able to withstand hard use over time.
Starting at $349 • hermanmiller.com
CHARLES AND RAY EAMES 13
 EAMES ELLIPTICAL TABLE
HERMAN MILLER • 1951
In 1951, having perfected a manufacturing technique for a striking stage for displaying mid-century fat lava vases,
welding wire-rod bases, Charles and Ray Eames decided fresh flowers, magazines, or a special book in a living
to bridge two bases with a dramatically shaped top large room, waiting room, reception area, or executive lounge.
enough to hold a variety of items and fit comfortably Finished in either black or white laminate, the table makes
with a long sofa or several chairs. They considered a strong and beautiful statement wherever it is.
many shapes. In the end, did they take their inspiration Starting at $649 • hermanmiller.com
from the surfboards they doubtless saw frequently, given
the commanding view of the Pacific Ocean from their
California home and studio? They never said, but people
often refer to this piece as the “surfboard table.” Whatever
you call it, the elliptical table makes it clear that good
design never goes out of style.

The elliptical table’s 89 inches of surface length provide

an expansive arc that lets you spread out or display
items--a lot or a few. The tabletop consists of a seven-ply
Baltic birch core sandwiched between high-pressure black
or white laminate. The edge is beveled on a 20-degree
angle to give the top added emphasis. With its long, low
profile, the Eames elliptical table sits dramatically in front
of a long sofa or in the middle of a chair grouping. It sets

14 CHARLES AND RAY EAMES 15

 ARNE JACOBSEN
A
rne Jacobsen bought a plywood chair designed
by Charles Eames and installed it in his own
studio, where it inspired one of the most
commercially successful chair models in design
history. The three-legged Ant chair (1951) sold in
millions and is considered a classic today. It consists
of two simple elements: tubular steel legs and a
springy seat and back formed out of a continuous
piece of plywood in a range of vivid colors.
Jacobsen began training as a mason before studying
at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Copenhagen
where he won a silver medal for a chair that was then
exhibited at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des
A pastry usually tastes better Art Decoratifs in Paris. Influenced by Le Corbusier,
IFin fact-there
IT LOOKS NICE
Gunnar Asplund and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
Jacobsen embraced a functionalist approach from the
is nothing I mind outset. He was among the first to introduce modernist
AS LONG AS IT LOOKS NICE ideas to Denmark and create industrial furniture that
built upon on its craft-based design heritage.
16
First among Jacobsen’s important architectural
commissions was the Bellavista housing project,
Copenhagen (1930-1934). Best known and most
fully integrated works, are the SAS Air Terminal and
the Royal Hotel Copenhagen for which Jacobsen
designed every detail from sculptural furnishings such
as his elegant Swan and Egg chairs (1957-1958) to
textiles, lighting, ashtrays and cutlery.
During the 1960’s, Jacobsen’s most important work
was a unified architectural and interior design scheme
for St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, which, like his
earlier work for the Royal Hotel, involved the design
of site-specific furniture. Jacobsen’s work remains
appealing and fresh today, combining free-form
sculptural shapes with the traditional attributes of
Scandinavian design, material and structural integrity.
17
 EGG CHAIR
FRTIZ HANSEN • 1958
Arne Jacobsen designed the Egg for the lobby and
reception areas in the Royal Hotel, in Copenhagen. The
commission to design every element of the hotel building
as well as the furniture was Jacobsen’s grand opportunity
to put his theories of integrated design and architecture
into practice. The Egg is one of the triumphs of Jacobsen’s
total design - a sculptural contrast to the building’s almost
exclusively vertical and horizontal surfaces. The Egg sprang
from a new technique, which Jacobsen was the first to use;
a strong foam inner shell underneath the upholstery. Like a
sculptor, Jacobsen strove to find the shell’s perfect shape
in clay at home in his own garage. Because of the unique
shape, the Egg guarantees a bit of privacy in otherwise
public spaces and the Egg – with or without footstool – is
ideal for lounge and waiting areas as well as the home.
The Egg is available in a wide variety of fabric upholstery
as well as leather, always combined with a star shaped
base in satin polished aluminium.
Starting at $5,934 • fritzhansen.com

18 ARNE JACOBSEN 19
 EERO AARNIO
T
he Finnish designer Eero Aarnio is regarded as a
pioneer in using plastic materials. Between 1954
and 1957 Eero Aarnio studied at the Institute of
Industrial Arts in Helsinki. In 1962 Eero Aarnio set
up his own studio there. He worked as an interior
decorator, industrial designer, graphic designer and
photographer. For his early furniture designs, Eero
Aarnio mainly used natural materials, for instance,
for the basket chair “Jattujakkare”. In the 1960s
Eero Aarnio turned increasingly to the new plastic
materials, especially fiber glass.
is even stronger in the 1968 “Bubble Chair”; its
curved seat consists of transparent perspex and is
dangling from the ceiling. Another 1968 Eero Aarnio
chair is “Plastil”, for which Eero Aarnio received the
American Industrial Design Award. Even though Eero
Aarnio’s design objects coincide with the era of Pop
design, he repudiated the throwaway ethic of the
1960s and 1970s. Far from it: Eero Aarnio explored
the possibilities of the new material plastic while
remaining true to the Scandinavian tradition of quality
and durability.

A ROOM In 1965, Eero Aarnio designed the legendary “Ball

WITHIN
Chair” (or “Globe Chair”), a globular seat made from
plastic that was reinforced with glass-fibers. The seat
is based on a narrow plinth with a broad bottom;

A ROOM
there is a round opening in the front. The inner part
of the globe is padded and soft and serves as a
seat. Sitting inside, the noises from outside seem to
be quite absorbed and far away, whilst sound from
the inside is actually amplified. This cocoon feeling

20 21
 BALL CHAIR
ADELTA • 1965

“ The idea of the chair was very obvious. We had moved to our
first home and I had started my free-lance career in 1962. We
had a home but no proper big chair, so I decided to make one,
but some way a really new one. After some drawing I noticed
that the shape of the chair had become so simple that it was
merely a ball. I pinned the full scale drawing on the wall and
sat in the chair to see how my head would move when sitting
inside it. Being the taller one of us, I sat in the chair and my wife
drew the course of my head on the wall. This is how I determined
the height of the chair. Since I aimed at a ball shape, the other
lines were easy to draw, just remembering that the chair would
have to fit through a doorway. After this I made the first prototype
myself using an inside mould, which has been made using the
same principle as a glider fuselage or wing. I covered the
plywood body mould with wet paper and laminated the surface
with fiberglass, rubbed down the outside, removed the mould
from inside, had it upholstered and added the leg. In the end
I installed the red telephone on the inside wall of the chair. The
naming part of the chair was easy, the Ball Chair was born.
- Eero Aarnio “
Starting at $6,860 • eero-aarnio.com

22 EERO AARNIO 23
 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
T
he United States has a love-hate relationship with
Mies van der Rohe. Some say that he stripped
architecture of all humanity, creating cold, sterile
and unlivable environments. Others praise his work,
saying he created architecture in its most pure form.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began his career in his
family stone-carving business in Germany. He never
received any formal architectural training, but when
wood, then stone, and then brick before progressing
to concrete and steel. He believed that architects
must completely understand their materials before
they can design.
Mies van der Rohe was not the first architect to
practice simplicity in design, but he carried the
ideals of rationalism and minimalism to new levels.

A chair
he was a teenager he worked as a draftsman for
several architects. Moving to Berlin, he found work
vin the offices of architect and furniture designer
Bruno Paul and industrial architect Peter Behrens.
is a very difficult object
His glass-walled Farnsworth House near Chicago
stirred controversy and legal battles. His bronze and
glass Seagram Building in New York City (designed
in collaboration with Philip Johnson) is considered
America’s first glass skyscraper. And, his philosophy

A skyscraper Early in his life, Mies van der Rohe began

experimenting with steel frames and glass walls.
that “less is more” became a guiding principle for
architects in the mid-twentieth century. Skyscrapers
is almost easier He was director of the Bauhaus School of Design around the world are modeled after designs by

That is why
Chippendale is famous
from 1930 until it disbanded in 1933. He moved
to the United States in 1937 and for twenty years
(1938-1958) he was Director of Architecture at the
Mies van der Rohe.

Illinois Institute of Technology. Mies van der Rohe

taught his taught students at IIT to build first with

24 25
 BARCELONA CHAIR
KNOLL • 1929
The Barcelona chair was exclusively designed for
the German Pavilion, that country’s entry for the
Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, which was
hosted by Barcelona, Spain. The design resulted
from collaboration between the famous Bauhaus
architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his longtime
partner and companion, architect and designer Lilly
Reich, whose contributions have only recently been
acknowledged. An icon of modernism, the chair’s
design was inspired by the campaign and folding
chairs of ancient times.
The Barcelona Chair frame was initially designed to
be bolted together, but was redesigned in 1950 using
stainless steel, which allowed the frame to be formed
by a seamless piece of metal, giving it a smoother
appearance. Bovine leather replaced the ivory-colored
pigskin which was used for the original pieces.
The functional design and elements of it that were
patented by Mies in Germany, Spain and the United
States in the 1930s have since expired.
26
The Barcelona chair was manufactured in the US
and Europe in limited production from the 1930s to
the 1950s. In 1953, six years after Reich’s death,
van der Rohe ceded his rights and his name on the
design to Knoll, knowing that his design patents were
expired. This collaboration then renewed popularity
in the design. Knoll claims to be the current licensed
manufacturer and holder of all trademark rights to
the design. In 1965, Knoll purchased the trademark
rights to the Barcelona word from Drexel. In 2004,
Knoll received trade dress rights to the design from
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Despite these
trademarks, a large replica market continues. Gordon
International New York has continued to manufacture
the designs since the 1970s, even after a court
battle against Knoll in 2005. In 2008, another court
battle erupted between Knoll and Alphaville Design
California; the outcome is pending Summary Judgment
in Federal District court.
Starting at $4,523 • knoll.com
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 27
 FLORENCE KNOLL
T
here aren’t many teenagers who could design
a house, complete in every architectural
detail, but Florence Knoll did – aged just 14.
Trained as an architect and designer, Knoll created
practical, yet beautiful furniture and interiors that
transformed the way living and work spaces are
now perceived. Knoll believed in total, holistic
design, and considered all aspects of a space when
creating interiors: architecture, interior design and
I AM
furniture design. Her ‘total’ approach led Knoll to
create clear, uncluttered corporate spaces in the
1950s that revolutionised the way workplaces were
arranged. To these spaces she added functional,
NOT
minimalist furniture, such as the Florence Knoll Sofa,
which combined usability, space-saving functionality,
comfort and style. Knoll’s design genius was spotted
early in life, when as an attendee of Kingswood
School – part of the famous Cranbrook Academy
of Art – she became the protégé of school president
A DECORATOR and Finnish Architect, Eliel Saarinen. Under his
tutelage, Florence learned the holistic approach
28
to design that would become the backbone of her
space and furniture creations. Florence met furniture
manufacturer, Hans Knoll, in 1943 and persuaded
him to change the way he created furniture –
introducing interior design to his operations. Within
three years, Florence had founded the now world-
famous Knoll Planning Unit and become Hans Knoll’s
wife and full business partner. When Hans Knoll died
in 1955, Florence went on to run the company – an
unprecedented move for a woman in the 1950s.
Her ability to spot talent meant that designers such
as Eero Saarinen created key furniture pieces for the
company under her leadership.
Knoll is also credited with bringing exceptionally
high standards to her furniture designs, and is
thought to have boosted furniture industry standards
as a whole. Her fastidious attention to detail earned
her a reputation for perfectionism: a quality evident
in her meticulously finished Florence Knoll Sofa, and
other furniture creations.
29
 FLORENCE KNOLL LOUNGE COLLECTION
KNOLL • 1954
As a pioneer of the Knoll Planning Unit, Florence
Knoll created what she modestly referred to as
the “fill-in pieces that no one else wants to do.”
She refers to her own line of lounge seating as
the equivalent of “meat and potatoes,” asserting,
“I needed the piece of furniture for a job and it
wasn’t there, so I designed it.” Like so many of
her groundbreaking designs that set the industry’s
gold standard, the 1954 Lounge collection has
made it into the pantheon of modern classics.
Consistent with all of Knoll’s designs, the Lounge
collection has a spare, angular profile that
reflects the objective perfectionism of modern
design in the early 1960s. Versatile collection
includes lounge chair, settee, sofa, two-seater
bench and three-seater bench.
Starting at $2,263 • knoll.com

30 FLORENCE KNOLL 31
 EERO SAARINEN
E
ero Saarinen was born in Finland in 1910 and
emigrated to the USA with his family when he
was 13 years old. His mother Loja was a sculptor
and textile designer, while his father Eliel was a
highly regarded architect who became one of the
principle lecturers at the Cranbrook Academy of Art
in Michigan. Saarinen studied sculpture in Paris then
architecture at Yale University, completing his degree
in 1934 and joining his father’s architecture practice
soon after. He went on to design such architectural
icons as the St Louis Gateway Arch in Missouri, the
TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International
of which was for the founder of the Case Study
program and publisher of avante-garde magazine
Arts & Architecture, John Entenza. While Saarinen’s
furniture output was relatively small, several of his
designs, such as the Womb and Tulip chairs, have
been in constant production since their launch. The
Tulip collection (1955) was a unique expression of
an architectural mind. Of the reduction of chair and
table legs to a single central pedestal, Saarinen said,
“I wanted to clear up the slum of legs.”

I WANTED TO Airport and the CBS Building in New York.

CLEAR UP THE Saarinen formed a friendship with Charles Eames

SLUM OF while Eames was lecturing at Cranbrook. By

LEGS
1940 they had collaborated on their first joint
design, which won two first prizes at the New
York Museum of Modern Art’s ‘Organic Design in
Home Furnishings’ competition. The pair went on
to create two Case Study houses together, one

32 33
 TULIP COLLECTION
KNOLL • 1956
The Tulip Chair and Stool is Saarinen’s purist No detachable parts, no legs, no separation
approach to architecture and interior design. He between component parts. It was unified. Winner
sought the essential idea and reduced it to the of the 1969 Museum of Modern art award, the
most effective structural solution within an overall chair is available with or without arms, and with
unity of design. To that end, Saarinen designed the complementary stools and tables.
1956 Tulip chair in terms of its setting, rather than Starting at $1,284 • knoll.com
a particular shape. “In any design problem, one
should seek the solution in terms of the next largest
thing,” he said. “If the problem is a chair, then its
solution must be found in the way it relates to the
room....” in Tulip, a single-legged chair made from
fiberglass-reinforced resin, Saarinen realized his
ideal of formal unity: “every significant piece of
furniture from the past has a holistic structure.”

He was an essentialist, breaking a chair or a

piece of furniture down to its most basic form and
function, and marrying that to an equally pure
design aesthetic. The Tulip Chair is an essential
art object, a lovely chair, and a piece of furniture
design history. The entire chair was of a piece:

34 EERO SAARINEN 35
 WOMB LOUNGE CHAIR AND OTTOMAN
KNOLL • 1948
“When I approach an architectural problem,” Eero
Saarinen once said, “I try to think out the real significance
of it. What is its essence and how can the total structure
capture that essence?” Florence Knoll had put forth the
challenge of creating “a chair she could curl up in.” the
Finnish-born architect and interior designer responded with
the 1948 Womb chair, part of his breakthrough seating
collection. With its steel rod base with a polished chrome
finish and a frame upholstered in fabric over a fiberglass
shell, the chair is designed to facilitate a relaxed sitting
posture, providing emotional comfort and a sense of
security—hence, the name “Womb,” now one of Knoll’s
most recognizable designs as well as one of the most
well-known pieces of 20th century design. Designed for
comfort, there is no chair more soothing than the Saarinen
Womb Chair. In addition to its impeccable comfort, the
Saarinen Womb Chair’s design is impossible to ignore.
It’s testament to both Saarinen’s skill and challenging of
rules, the result of which is this true icon of design.
Starting at $3,076 • knoll.com

36 EERO SAARINEN 37
 EXECUTIVE CHAIR
KNOLL • 1946
The design of Eero Saarinen’s Executive Side
Chair (1946) began more than a decade earlier,
when he and Charles Eames submitted several
designs to the Organic Design in Home Furnishings
competition at the MoMA. The pair, who’d
been friends and collaborators since meeting at
Cranbrook Academy of Art, won first prize. These
fluid, sculptural shapes influenced the future work
of both men; for Saarinen, most notably in his
Womb, Tulip and Executive chairs.
at the dome-shaped glass wall of the Kresge
Auditorium at MIT, it’s not a big leap to see the
same shape in the back of his Executive Chair.
This chair is Greenguard Indoor Air Quality
Certified; for its use of low-emitting products.
Manufactured by Knoll according to the original
and exacting specifications of the designer.
Starting at $840 • knoll.com

The Executive was originally made of fiberglass

but was later updated in polyurethane to take
advantage of the technical advances in plastics.
The feel of this classic seat, however, remains
unchanged. The molded shell flexes slightly
with the sitter and the contoured plywood
seat supported by metal or wood legs. Unlike
Saarinen’s furniture, which was consistently
sculptural in form, these fluid lines didn’t appear
in his architecture until the 1950s. When looking

38 EERO SAARINEN 39
 GEORGE NELSON
G
eorge Nelson studied Architecture at Yale,
where he graduated in 1928. He continued his
studies and received a bachelor degree in fine
arts in 1931. A year later while preparing for the
Paris Prize competition he won the Rome prize. With
Eliot Noyes, Charles Eames and Walter B. Ford he
was part of a generation of architects that found too
few projects and turned successfully toward product,
graphic and interior design. A few years later he
returned to the U.S.A. to devote himself to writing.
Through his writing in “Pencil Points” he introduced
Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier
and Gio Ponti to North America. At “Architectural
Forum” he was first associate editor (1935- 1943)
and later consultant editor (1944-1949).
GOOD DESIGN By 1940 he had drawn popular attention with several
innovative concepts. In his post-war book: Tomorrow’s
IS TIMELESS House, for instance he introduced the concept of the
”family room”. One of those innovative concepts, the
“storagewall” attracted the attention of D.J. De Pree,
40
Herman Miller’s president. In 1945 De Pree asked
him to become Herman Miller’s design director, an
appointment that became the start of a long series
of successful collaborations with Ray and Charles
Eames, Harry Bertoia, Richard Schultz, Donald
Knorr and Isamu Noguchi. He set new standards
for the involvement of design in all the activities of
the company, and in doing so he pioneered the
practice of corporate image management, graphic
programs and signage. His catalogue design and
exhibition designs for Herman Miller close a long list
of involvements designed to make design to the most
important driving force in the company. From his start
in the mid-forties to the mid-eighties his office worked
for and with the best of his times. He was without
any doubt the most articulate and one of the most
eloquent voices on design and architecture in the
U.S.A. of the 20th century.
41
 NELSON COCONUT CHAIR
HERMAN MILLER • 1955
What kind of person thinks up a chair that looks
like a chunk of coconut? How about the person
who came up with the Marshmallow sofa. The
person who said, “Total design is nothing more
or less than a process of relating everything to
everything.” Who brought modernism to American
furniture. George Nelson. 1950s. Call it what you
will—classic, icon, slice of hard-shelled tropical
fruit. Half a century later, it’s as wonderful to look
at—and sit in—as ever.
Because of its unique, striking design, the
Coconut chair is part of the permanent collection
in museums worldwide. Because of the comfort
Nelson provided in his design, it’s also part of
the “permanent collection” in homes and offices.
The chair, as we produce it today, is true to
Nelson’s original design, materials, and detailing.
A modern classic, plain and simple.
Starting at $3.999 • hermanmiller.com

Introduced in 1955, the coconut chair is one

artifact of the burst of creativity issuing from
George Nelson’s design studio and changing
the look and feel of American furniture. Once
our founder, D.J. De Pree, convinced Nelson to
become his director of design, a warm personal
and professional relationship between the two
led to a stunning range of products—including
the Marshmallow sofa and the first L-shaped desk,
a precursor to today’s workstation. And this chair.

42 GEORGE NELSON 43
 NELSON MARSHMALLOW SOFA
HERMAN MILLER • 1956
This is a sofa to brighten a room, to be happy
and relax on. You look at its 18 10-inch
“marshmallow” cushions and you can’t help but
smile. It’s been that way since it began turning
heads in 1956, when the Nelson Marshmallow
sofa was described in our catalog this way:
“Despite its astonishing appearance, this piece
is very comfortable.”
elements and making them appear to float on
air, Nelson and Harper achieved this sofa’s
unique appearance and eye-catching appeal,
which led the way into the pop art style of the
1960s. And by the way, that young designer
- Irving Harper - also designed the famous
Herman Miller company logo.
Starting at $3.099 • hermanmiller.com

George Nelson and Irving Harper, a young

designer working in Nelson’s design firm, were
approached by an inventor who had created an
injection plastic disc that he insisted could be
produced inexpensively and would be durable.
The designers took a look and arranged 18
of them on a steel frame - the origin of the
Marshmallow sofa. The inventor’s cushions
turned out to be impractical, but Nelson and
Harper were intrigued by the design they had
created so casually, and Herman Miller decided
to manufacture the sofa. By joining separate

44 GEORGE NELSON 45
 ISAMU NOGUCHI
H
ow does one sculpt space? How do objects give
form to the surrounding emptiness? This puzzle,
posed both by Europeans like Giacometti and
Brancusi and the Zen artists of Japan, creates a theme
that runs through the work of Isamu Noguchi. It is not
one he attempted to solve, but like the Zen master,
posed the question in different ways.
One of the great sculptors of the 20th century,
Noguchi created “lived spaces” for the theater,
interiors gardens and playgrounds. He also sought
to bring sculptural qualities to the many objects
he designed for common use. As a young man,
Noguchi studied medicine at Columbia University, but
ART SHOULD BECOME abandoned medicine to pursue painting and sculpture
AS ONE
and in 1927, a Guggenheim fellowship took him to
Europe. In Paris, he had the great good fortune to
be apprenticed in the studio of Constantin Brancusi,
whose investigations of form and space recalled the
WITH ITS SURROUNDINGS art and architecture Noguchi knew from childhood
years spent in Japan.
46
Back in America, Noguchi met choreographer
Martha Graham and began a long friendship with
Buckminster Fuller. Graham and Fuller provided
Noguchi with inspiration, ideas and opportunities
to create new forms like the sets he designed for
Graham’s dance programmes. In 1939, he designed
a free-form dining table for the president of the
Museum of Modern Art, New York, A. Congers
Goodyear. The table’s seductive organic form
presaged the coffee table Noguchi would design
for Herman Miller in 1944 and the wide range of
products that he would design all during the 1940’s,
furniture informed by the biomorphic imagery of his
sculpture.From his sculpture to his garden design to
the Akari lamps designed in the 1950’s, Noguchi’s
work sought always to resolve life and aesthetic
practice, the art object and the utensil, just as he
sought to reveal the essential unity of form and space.
47
 NOGUCHI TABLE
HERMAN MILLER • 1944
A legendary piece of furniture gives rise to legends
about its inception, and the Noguchi table is a perfect
example. Where did the design begin? We know that
Noguchi was an inveterate scrounger. He scavenged
his New York neighborhood for all kinds of materials
he could use for his sculptures and other projects.
George Nelson, our design director at the time, said
he was visiting Noguchi’s studio while Noguchi was
creating a table for his sister; the prototype he was
working on was made from materials he had picked
up in alleys and on the street.
Isamu Noguchi says in his autobiography that the
design began after another designer “borrowed” a
Noguchi design for a three-legged table, then offered
it for sale. That designer answered Noguchi’s protests
by saying, “Anybody can make a three-legged table.”
So Noguchi set out to design a different three-legged
table. One that not just anybody could make.
48
Were the tables in these two stories one and the
same? Probably. Because George Nelson asked
Noguchi to allow him to use the design he saw that
day to illustrate an article called “How to Make a
Table.” And he also wanted Herman Miller to produce
it. From the time it first appeared on the market as
a Herman Miller table in 1948, it became perhaps
Noguchi’s most recognized work.
Noguchi was, first and foremost, a sculptor who
believed his task was to shape and bring order
to space. He also believed that art should become
as one with its surroundings. In a long lifetime of
creative work, Noguchi designed gardens and
plazas, fountains and murals, furniture and paper
lamps, and stage sets for modern dance pioneer
Martha Graham. But he said that of all the furniture
designs he created, the table that bears his name
represented his only true success.
Starting at $1,349 • hermanmiller.com
ISAMU NOGUCH 49
 LE CORBUSIER
F
ew would protest that Le Corbusier, Charles-
Edouard Jeanneret, is one of the most influential
architects of the 20th century. He articulated
provocative ideas, created revolutionary designs and
demonstrated a strong, if utopian, sense of purpose to
meet the needs of a democratic society dominated by
the machine.
Le Corbusier was encouraged by a teacher to take up
architecture and built his first house at the age of 18
for a member of his school’s teaching staff. In 1908,
he went to Paris and began to practice with Auguste
Pierret, an architect known for his pioneering use of
concrete and reinforced steel. Moving to Berlin, Le
Corbusier worked with Peter Behrens, who taught
The home should be thE him about industrial processes and machine design.
treasure chesT In 1917, he returned to Paris where he met post-
OF LIVING
cubist Amedee Ozenfant and developed Purism, a
new concept of painting. In 1920, still in Paris, he
adopted the pseudonym, Le Corbusier.
50
Paradoxically, Le Corbusier combined a passion for
classical Greek architecture and an attraction to the
modern machine. He published his ideas in a book
entitled, Vers une Architecture, in which he refers to
the house as a “machine for living,” an industrial
product that should include functional furniture or
“equipment de l’habitation.” In this spirit, Corbusier
co-designed a system of furniture with his cousin
Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand. The tubular
steel furniture, like the famous chaise and Grand
Confort chair, projected a new rationalist aesthetic
that came to epitomize the International Style. During
the 1920s and 30s, Le Corbusier concentrated on
architecture and during the 1950s he moved towards
more expressive forms that revealed the sculptural
potential of concrete. Over the decades, his work has
included mass housing blocks, public buildings and
individual villas, all conceived with what he called
the “engineer’s aesthetic.”
51
 LC2 COLLECTION
CASSINA • 1928
The Le Corbusier group referred to their LC2
Collection as “cushion baskets,” which they designed
as a modernist response to the traditional club
chair. These pieces reverse the standard structures
of sofas and chairs by having frames that are
externalized. With thick, resilient pillows resting
within the steel frames, the idea was to offer all
the comfort of a padded surface while applying
the elegant minimalism and industrial rationale of
the International Style. The resulting aesthetic of the
simple tubular structure is remarkably relevant to
how we live today, more than 80 years later. Each
piece is signed and numbered and, as a product of
Cassina’s Masters Collection, is manufactured by
Cassina under exclusive worldwide license from the
Le Corbusier Foundation.
Starting at $3.780 • cassinausa.com

52 LE CORBUSIER 53
 VERNER PANTON
B
orn 1926 in Gamtofte, Denmark, Verner Panton
studied at Odense Technical College before
enrolling at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine
Arts in Copenhagen as an architecture student. He
worked from 1950-52 in thearchitectural firm of
Arne Jacobsen and founded an independent studio
for architecture and design in 1955. His furniture
designs for the firm Plus-linje attracted attention
with their geometric forms. In the following years
Panton created numerous designs for seating furniture
and lighting. His passion for bright colours and
geometric patterns manifested itself in an extensive
Panton’s collaboration with Vitra began in the early
1960s, when the firm decided to develop what
became his best-known design, the Panton Chair,
which was introduced in 1967. This was also the
first independently developed product by Vitra.
Verner Panton died in 1998 in Copenhagen.
Vitra’s re-edition of designs by Panton, as well as
the retrospective of his work mounted by the Vitra
Design Museum in 2000, bear witness to the special
relationship between Vitra and Verner Panton.

CHOOSING COLORS range of textile designs. By fusing the elements of

a room—floor, walls, ceiling, furnishings, lighting,
SHOULD NOT BE A textiles, wall panels made of enamel or plastic—

GAMBLE into a unified gesamtkunstwerk, Panton’s interior

installations have attained legendary status. The most

IT SHOULD BE
famous examples are the “Visiona” ship installations
for the Cologne Furniture Fair (1968 and 1970), the
A CONSCIOUS DECISION Spiegel publishing headquarters in Hamburg (1969)
and the Varna restaurant in Aarhus (1970).

54 55
 PANTON CHAIR
VITRA • 1960
“Most people spend their lives living in dreary, beige
conformity, mortally afraid of using color. The main
purpose of my work is to provoke people into using
their imagination and make their surroundings more
exciting.” Created by Verner Panton in 1960, and
with the assistance of Vitra technicians a version was
finally ready for series production in 1967. The Panton
Chair is the very first ever to be constructed from one
continous piece of material. Since its market launch, the
Panton Chair has undergone several production phases.
Not until today was it possible to produce it in line with
Panton’s original idea, namely from consistently dyed,
tough plastic with a matte surface and an affordable
price. The Panton Chair has won various design awards
world-wide and graces the collections of numerous
renowned museums. Its expressive shape makes it a true
20th century design icon. The chair offers great seating
comfort thanks to the cantilever base, together with its
shape and flexible materials. It can be used on its own
or in groups and even outdoors.
Starting at $260 • vitra.com

56 VERNER PANTON 57
JIMMY MORRISSEY KENDALL COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN PUBLICATION DESIGN FALL 2010