Vintage Marble Ashtray by Angelo Mangiarotti for Knoll International, 1960s

Highly esteemed for his researched and controlled approach to materials, Italian architect, sculptor, and designer Angelo Mangiarotti was born in Milan in 1921. Having graduated from the Politecnico di Milano with an architecture degree in 1948, he moved to the United States in 1953. There, he held a visiting professorship at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology and befriended famous architects Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), Walter Gropius (1883-1969), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), and Konrad Wachsmann (1901-1980)—all of whom influenced his work immensely.

Mangiarotti returned to Milan in 1955 and opened an architectural firm with Italian architect Bruno Morasutti (1920-2008). The pair designed industrial, residential, and cultural institutions, such as the Via Cantore Skyscraper (1955) in Genova and the Mater Misericordiae Church (1957) in Milan. The partnership dissolved in 1960.

From 1963 to 1990, Mangiarotti held lecturing positions at a number of distinguished design and architecture schools in Italy and abroad. In 1989, he founded Mangiarotti & Associates, based in Tokyo. He later served as the Creative Director at Colle Cristalleria from 1989 to 1992.

Beyond his many architectural feats, Mangiarotti’s portfolio includes a wide array of creative projects—ranging from sculptures, like Cono-cielo (1987), to products, like his Fratelli Brambilla Ashtrays (1968)—that demonstrate his masterfully modern handling of traditional materials like glass and marble. His designs were produced by the most progressive brands of his day, including Artemide, Bernini, Cappellini, Knoll, and, most famously Skipper, which produced the Incas Table (1978), Estral Shelving System (1981), Chicago Chair (1983), and Central Table (1985), among others. He’s also famous for his collection of Murano glass-link Giogali Lighting (ca. 1967) produced by Vistosi.

Over his the course of his career, Mangiarotti won numerous awards in both design and architecture, such as the Domus Formica Award (1956), the Prix Européen de la Construction Métallique (1979), a Career Compasso d’Oro (1994), and the Marble Architectural Award (1994, 2007). His work has been featured in many exhibitions worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Triennale Design Museum in Milan, and Gallery MA in Tokyo.

In 2012, Mangiarotti passed away in Milan at the age of 91. His daughter Anna Mangiarotti (b. 1950) is a professor in architecture technology at the Politecnico and works closely with Vistosi to manufacture her father’s designs as well as her own. Since 2010, Agape Casa has owned the license to produce a number of Mangiarotti’s most beloved designs.

* Images courtesy of Studio Mangiarotti, Agape Casa, Artemide, and Vistosi

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.