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Pristine Upholstered Florence Knoll Sofa for Knoll International
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Details
Description
Pristine Florence Knoll Sofa for Knoll International. Upholstered in gorgeous Sina Pearson fabric.
Florence Knoll was a pioneering designer and …
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Pristine Florence Knoll Sofa for Knoll International. Upholstered in gorgeous Sina Pearson fabric.
Florence Knoll was a pioneering designer and entrepreneur who created the modern look and feel of America’s postwar corporate office with sleek furniture, artistic textiles and an uncluttered, free-flowing workplace environment.
To connoisseurs of Modernism, the mid-20th-century designs of Florence Knoll, were — and still are — the essence of the genre’s clean, functional forms. Transcending design fads, they are still influential, still contemporary, still common in offices, homes and public spaces, still found in dealers’ showrooms and represented in museum collections.
Ms. Knoll learned her art at the side of Modernist masters. She was a protégé of the German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen, the Finnish architect and teacher and the father of the architect Eero Saarinen. And she worked with the renowned Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Throughout her career, influenced by the German Bauhaus school of design, she promoted the Modernist merger of architecture, art and utility in her furnishings and interiors, especially — although not exclusively — for offices.
In the 1940s, she married and became a business partner of the German-born furniture maker Hans Knoll, and over 20 years she was instrumental in building Knoll Associates into the largest and most prestigious high-end design firm of its kind, with 35 showrooms in the United States and around the world.
While her husband handled business affairs, Ms. Knoll was the design force of Knoll Associates. It grew to become the leading innovator of modern interiors and furnishings in the 1950s and ’60s, transforming the CBS, Seagram and Look magazine headquarters in Manhattan, the H. J. Heinz headquarters in Pittsburgh and properties across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, including American embassies.
Her “total design” favored open work spaces over private offices, and furniture grouped for informal discussions. It integrated lighting, vibrant colors, acoustical fabrics, chairs molded like tulip petals, sofas and desks with chrome legs, collegially oval meeting tables, and futuristic multilevel interiors, more architectural than decorative, with open-riser staircases that seemed to float in the air.
Besides doing strategic planning and designing furniture herself, Ms. Knoll recruited and hired many of the world’s best postwar designers. She staked the sculptor Harry Bertoia to two years in a studio barn to see if, working with metals, he could turn out furniture. His wire chairs became Knoll classics. She asked Eero Saarinen to design a chair “like a great big basket of pillows that I can curl up in.” He created the body-embracing “womb chair.”
She also brought designer friends and former teachers into the fold by acquiring rights to their creations, paying them commissions and royalties, and giving them credit for their designs.
Some of the 20th century’s most admired designs thus became Knoll replicas, including Isamu Noguchi’s cyclone table (1950), held up by a whorl of rods like a tornado funnel, and the Barcelona chair, the sloped leather-and-steel piece created by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain.
Even replicas of such designs were expensive to produce, involving some hand-crafting, and retail prices ran into the thousands despite Ms. Knoll’s cost controls. The frame of the Barcelona chair, for example, originally nine steel components bolted together, was designed as a seamless piece of stainless steel, and cowhide instead of pigskin was used for seat and back coverings.
“Her exactitude could be frustrating for those who worked under her,” the website LiveAuctioneers .com said of her in a profile.
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- Dimensions
- 90ʺW × 33ʺD × 31ʺH
- Styles
- Contemporary
- Seat Height
- 17.0 in
- Brand
- Knoll International
- Period
- 2010s
- Country of Origin
- United States
- Item Type
- Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned
- Materials
- Chrome
- Fabric
- Steel
- Upholstery
- Condition
- Good Condition, Original Condition Unaltered, Some Imperfections
- Color
- Cream
- Condition Notes
- Pristine original condition. Very comfortable. Pristine original condition. Very comfortable. less
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Return Policy - All sales are final 48 hours after delivery, unless otherwise specified in the description of the product.
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- Buyer refunded item cost. Buyer pays return shipping cost
- Does not apply to damages that occur post-delivery
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Shipping
Note: Made-to-Order items typically include a lead time or custom delivery window that is added to the delivery time.
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- Shipping charges start at $999 and vary based on the size, weight, packaging, and/or the value of the item.
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- Chairish In-Home Delivery
- The item will be delivered to your home and placed in the desired room. The delivery service includes unpacking, inspecting, and removing packaging materials; and does not include installation or setting up the item.
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Shipping charges start at $149 and based on the size and the distance between pickup and delivery
(for approximate values see table):
Delivery Type Within 50 miles radius Within 1,500 miles radius Over 1,500 miles radius International Cross-Border Shipping Price $149 - $299 $199 - $799 $449 - $899 Over $899 Transit Time 2 to 4 weeks 3 to 6 weeks 4 to 8 weeks 12 to 17 weeks - For some items, the shipping price may vary depending on the size, weight, material and/or value of the item.
- Free Local Pickup
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- Following purchase, a confirmation email is sent to the email address associated with the order, and includes: Pickup Verification & Seller's contact information
- Please contact the seller within 5 days to coordinate pickup
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- Shipping charges start at $9 — and vary based on the size, weight, packaging and the value of the item.
Delivery Type US Domestic International Cross-Border Shipping Price $9 - $99 $39 - $499 Transit Time 1 to 2 weeks 2 to 4 weeks - Seller Managed Delivery
- Shipping is offered and managed by the seller, through a shipper of the seller’s choice.
- Available on items at the seller’s discretion.
- Seller Managed Local Delivery
- Local curbside delivery is offered and managed by the seller, within a limited geography.
- Following purchase, a confirmation email is sent to the confirmation email address associated with the order, and includes: Pickup Verification Code & Seller’s contact information
- Please contact the seller within 5 days to coordinate delivery.
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