Florence Knoll, the woman who invented the modern office

Florence Knoll (1917-2019) is not only the co-founder of American publisher Knoll: she is the interior architect who invented the corporate office as we know it. Trained at Cranbrook and under Mies van der Rohe, she ran with her husband Hans Knoll the publishing agency from the 1950s onwards, edited Saarinen, Bertoia, Mies, Platner, and signed herself sober, geometric, perfect pieces. Her philosophy? An office can be beautiful, and design is not a luxury but a standard.

The Florence Knoll armchair, the two- or three-seater sofa and the marble and steel conference table equipped the headquarters of the largest American companies for thirty years. Today, these Knoll-edited pieces are references of modernist design to find second-hand.