Brigadier Sofa by Cini Boeri for Knoll, 1970s

Born in 1924 in Milan, Cini Boeri is an award-winning industrial designer, architect, and interior designer. Along with Gae Aulenti, she was one of the few female Italian designers to enjoy international success in the postwar era. Her work has consistently underscored the psychological connection between humans and their environment.

After graduating from the Polytechnic University in Milan in 1951, she interned at Giò Ponti’s architectural firm before working for many years with designer Marco Zanuso. In 1963, Boeri founded her eponymous architecture studio, focusing on industrial design as well as civil architecture. She created many modern Italian design classics, including the Bobo Lounge (1967), which was the first exclusively foam Monobloc seat; the 602 Table Lamp (1968); the polyurethane Serpentone Lounge (1971) that was sold by the meter; the modular Strips Series (1972, awarded the Compasso D’Oro in 1979); the sculpted glass Cibi Tumbler (1973), the Ghost Armchair (1987 in collaboration with Tomu Katayanagi); and the Bortolo Chair (2014).

Over the course of her career, Boeri has collaborated with some of the biggest Italian and international brands including Arflex, Artemide, Rosenthal, Knoll, Magis , Venini, Fiam, Misawa Homes, Tre-P Tre-Piu, Tronconi, and Philips. Her most celebrated architectural projects include The Domestic Project, first exhibited at the 1986 Triennale; The Bunker House (1967) on the island of La Maddalena; Casa nel Bosco (1969) near Lago Maggiore; and the Apartment on Three Levels in central Milan (2006).

As well as winning the Compasso d’Oro for the Strip Series, Boeri has been the recipient of many prestigious international prizes, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles in 2008; she was nominated as an honorary member of ADI in 2012. She has held many esteemed positions at several international institutions and universities, including the Politecnico di Milano, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Lugano in Switzerland. Her work can be found in Milan Triennale Design Museum and New York's MoMA.

For more information about Boeri's unique design philosophy, check out The Human Dimension of Home Living (Franco Angeli: Milan, 1980).

* Images courtesy of Cini Boeri Architetti

Hans Knoll was born in 1914 in Stuttgart, Germany, into the successful manufacturing family behind Walter Knoll & Co. Early-20th-century Germany was an epicenter of modernist design theory—most notably expressed in the products and practices of the Deutscher Werkbund association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists, as well as the influential Bauhaus school—which advocated for design rooted in the principles of rationality, functionalism, and mass production. This milieu had a profound influence on Hans and inspired him to produce furniture for the new age. In 1937, after a stint in London, he moved to the United States and brought his modernist vision with him.

Florence Knoll (neé Schust) was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1917 and from an early age exhibited a strong interest in architecture. After graduating from the Kingswood School for Girls in 1934, she moved across campus to the newly formed, Bauhaus-inspired Cranbrook Academy of Art to study architecture under recent émigré, Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen. There she befriended future design luminaries Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. She went on to Columbia University’s School of Architecture to study town planning. In 1937, she apprenticed under former-Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a few years later, enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became a life-long mentor to her.

In 1938, Hans Knoll established The Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company as a furniture exporter in a small space on East 72nd Street in New York City. As the company quickly grew, it evolved into a manufacturing business. In 1941, he opened his first plant in a former dance hall in East Greenville, Pennsylvania and hired Danish designer Jens Risom, who eventually helped him develop the first, original Knoll furniture designs. That same year, Hans met Florence on an interior design project and, recognizing her exceptional taste and eye, hired her to bring in business with architects and interior designers and, later, to provide in-house planning and interior design expertise for a growing corporate clientele. In 1946, Hans and Florence married and renamed the company Knoll Associates. That same year, the Knolls formally established the Planning Unit, solidifying the company’s role in the design of interior spaces. In 1951, Knoll International was launched as the German and French arms of Knoll, producing Knoll designs for the European market. Sadly, Hans died in a tragic car crash in 1955, but Florence remained actively involved until she retired in 1965.

Knoll’s signature pieces include Breuer’s Wassily Chair (1925), Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair (1929/1948), Harry Bertoia’s Diamond Chair (1952), Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Armchair (1957), as well as Florence‘s own furniture collection developed through the 1950s. Knoll’s impressive catalogue includes a who’s-who list of midcentury modern and contemporary design figures, including Jens Risom, Alexander Girard, George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi, Richard Schultz, Warren Platner, Charles Pollock, Andrew Morrison & Bruce Hannah, Vignelli Associates, Richard Sapper, Maya Lin, Frank Gehry, and Rem Koolhaas. As of this writing, Knoll’s most recent collaboration is with David Adjaye, who designed the Washington Collection for Knoll and the Adjaye Collection for KnollTextiles. Today, the company is particularly focused on meeting the evolving needs of the 21st-century workplace.

In 2011, Knoll received the National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. The award recognized Knoll’s legacy in American modern design and the company’s commitment to promoting the relationship between good design and quality of life. Knoll designs can be found in the permanent design collections of institutions around the world, including more than 30 acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

* All images courtesy Knoll, Inc. The David Adjaye Skeleton Chair was photographed by Joshua McHugh.