Heli 3-Seater Leather Sofa by Otto Zapf for Knoll, 1980s

Industrial designer Otto Zapf was born into a family of cabinet makers in 1931 in Rossbach, former Czechoslovakia. In 1945, his family moved to Eschborn, near Frankfurt in Germany. Turned off carpentry from the dust and the dirt of his father’s workshop, Zapf instead decided to study mathematics and physics at Goethe University in Frankfurt. When he returned to design, Zapf used his mathematical background to enhance his office furniture designs.

He began to design professionally in 1956, jointly with Rolf Schmidt, Dieter Rams (b. 1932) and Günther Kieser (b. 1930). In 1958 he met and befriended Danish entrepreneur Niels Vitsœ (1913-1995). A year later they founded the company, Vitsœ + Zampf, producing furniture designed by Dieter Rams. Ultimately, the partnership ended with Zapf leaving the company because he was not rightly credited with the design that inspired Ram’s infamous 606 shelving unit. After Zapf left in 1969, the company became simply Vitsœ.

In 1967, Zapf designed his own collection of fiberglass desks, cabinets, bookcases, and chairs that utilized fiberglass frames and shells. The Sofallettes, Arcadia, Comudus and Calix sofas; the fully fiberglass Column Table (1967) were well received at the time. It was for his Column Floor Lamp (1968) however, that he won the “Gute Form” (Good Form) Award in 1972.

Sometime between 1970 and 1971, Zapf designed his Softline System–one of the very first fabric-based panel display systems. The design received acclaim at the Design Center in Stuttgart. Bobby Cadwallader, president of the American furniture manufacturer Knoll, hired Zapf in 1973 to create an office system based on these fabric-covered frames and Bill Stephen’s Stephens System (1971). The result was the Zapf System (1976), which promoted an entirely free and open office environment, including free standing desks, storage units, work stations and screens. This collaboration marked Knoll’s first venture into office and systems furniture. Pacific Telephone used the system for over 7,500 employees, which was the largest furniture contract in history. Soon, Zapf’s designs were in the corporate headquarters of IBM, General Motors and CBS.

A fruitful collaboration, Zapf created an array of much-lauded designs for Knoll which were—above all—user friendly, comfortable and welcoming. In 1982 the Zapf System was adapted, extended and renamed the Zapf Plus Office System, which was launched in Europe in 1985.  He continued to design for the modernist office, with the Management Office System for Vitra (1986), the Aurora Office System (1991), which took ten years to design and develop and which won the “Best of Neocon” award in Chicago, and the Marvel Zapf Office System (1999) which was also exhibited in at Neocon in Chicago.

Today, Zapf continues to design and develop new products in his studio in Germany.

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.