Model Toledo Dining Chair by Jorge Pensi for Knoll Inc. / Knoll International, 1980s

Regarded as one of Spain’s leading designers, Jorge Pensi originally hails from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he was born (1946) and educated in architecture (1971). Soon after graduating, Pensi fled Argentina’s military dictatorship for Catalonia, where, after procuring citizenship in 1977, he established Grupo Berengeur, a Barcelona-based design agency, along with compatriot architect-designer Alberto Liévore and theorists Norberto Chaves and Oriol Pibernat. The group enjoyed a frenetic and varied output, engaging in pedagogical work as well as furniture design for a range of clients. 

In 1984, Grupo Berengeur splintered, and Pensi and Liévore went solo, establishing their own eponymous firms in Barcelona. Specializing in furniture and lighting design, as well as brand and event staging consultation, Pensi’s firm quickly came to be seen as a leader in contemporary Spanish design. Pensi’s work aimed at a timeless minimalism and purity of form tinged with a warm, expressive sensuality. His cast-aluminum Toledo Chair (1988), produced by Amat and, later, by Knoll Inc. / Knoll International, became an instant design classic; it’s only design from Spain that’s found in Vitra’s “Design Masterpieces” collection. Other standout designs include his cleverly svelte Regina and Olympia Billar Lamps for Spanish lighting manufacturer B.LUX (both 1988); as well as his cast-aluminum and lacquered wood Orfilia Chair for Thonet (1989). 

Into the 1990s and 2000s, Pensi continued to broaden his worldwide base of clients, collaborating on designs for Kusch+Co (¡Hola!, 1993), Akaba (Gorka, 1993, which is often compared to the modernist work of Danish master Arne Jacobsen), Disform (Glassbox, 1995), Punt Mobles (Temps Chair, 1997), Cassina (Artico and Duna, 1998), and Mobles 114 (Gimlet, 2003, which won a 2004 Good Design Award). Along the way, he garnered his adopted country’s most esteemed design honor—the 1997 Spanish National Design Prize for outstanding professional achievement.

Today still feverishly active, Pensi is, as of writing, working with Inorca (Colombia), Akaba (Spain), Resol (Spain), Estel (Italy), Pedrali (Italy), and OFS Brands (USA).

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.