Florence Knoll On Sale
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Desks and Writing Tables
Steel
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Desk Sets
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Marble, Chrome, Nickel
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Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
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Vintage 1950s Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Fabric
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Fabric
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Club Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Steel, Chrome
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Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Club Chairs
Upholstery
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21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Travertine
21st Century and Contemporary Swiss Modern Night Stands
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2010s American Mid-Century Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
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21st Century and Contemporary Portuguese Modern Sofas
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1990s Italian Mid-Century Modern Loveseats
Chrome
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
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21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and...
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Iron
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Early 2000s Italian Sofas
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Recent Sales
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Desks
Maple
21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Sofas
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Settees
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Desks and Writing Tables
Walnut
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
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Vintage 1960s American Cabinets
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Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
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Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Night Stands
Oak, Teak
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
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Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
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Early 2000s Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
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Vintage 1960s Mid-Century Modern Cabinets
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21st Century and Contemporary Italian Dining Room Tables
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Chrome
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Fabric
2010s Italian Scandinavian Modern Sofas
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Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Patio and Garden Furniture
Aluminum
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Stainless Steel
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
Early 2000s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
Chrome
Mid-20th Century Italian Modern Tables
Steel
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Iron
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
Marble, Chrome
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Chrome
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Side Tables
Steel
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Steel
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Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
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Antique Mid-17th Century American Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
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Chrome
Vintage 1970s Swiss Dining Room Tables
Chrome
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
Chrome
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
Chrome
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Conference Tables
Steel, Chrome
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Rosewood
Late 20th Century Modern Benches
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Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Settees
Textile
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
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Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Upholstery
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Benches
Chrome
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Settees
Steel, Enamel, Chrome
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Fabric
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Steel
Vintage 1960s Mid-Century Modern Credenzas
Carrara Marble
Florence Knoll On Sale For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a Florence Knoll On Sale?
Florence Knoll for sale on 1stDibs
Architect, furniture designer, interior designer, entrepreneur — Florence Knoll had a subtle but profound influence on the course of mid-century American modernism. Dedicated to functionality and organization, and never flamboyant, Knoll shaped the ethos of the postwar business world with her skillfully realized office plans and polished, efficient designs for sofas, credenzas, desks and other furnishings.
Knoll had perhaps the most thorough design education of any of her peers. Florence Schust was orphaned at age 12, and her guardian sent her to Kingswood, a girl’s boarding school that is part of the Cranbrook Educational Community in suburban Detroit. Her interest in design brought her to the attention of Eliel Saarinen, the Finnish architect and head of the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Saarinen and his wife took the talented child under their wing, and she became close to their son, the future architect Eero Saarinen. While a student at the academy, Florence befriended artist-designer Harry Bertoia and Charles and Ray Eames. Later, she studied under three of the Bauhaus masters who emigrated to the United States. She worked as an apprentice in the Boston architectural offices of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe taught her at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
In 1941, she met Hans Knoll, whose eponymous furniture company was just getting off the ground. They married in 1946, and her design sense and his business skills soon made Knoll Inc. a leading firm in its field. Florence signed up the younger Saarinen as a designer, and would develop pieces by Bertoia, Mies and the artist Isamu Noguchi.
Florence Knoll's main work came as head of the Knoll Planning Group, designing custom office interiors for clients such as IBM and CBS. The furniture she created for these spaces reflects her Bauhaus training: the pieces are pure functional design, exactingly built; their only ornament from the materials, such as wood and marble. Her innovations — the oval conference table, for example, conceived as a way to ensure clear sightlines among all seated at a meeting — were always in the service of practicality.
Since her retirement in 1965, Knoll received the National Medal of Arts, among other awards; in 2004 the Philadelphia Museum of Art mounted the exhibition “Florence Knoll: Defining Modern” — well deserved accolades for a strong, successful design and business pioneer. As demonstrated on these pages, the simplicity of Knoll’s furniture is her work’s great virtue: they fit into any interior design scheme.
Find vintage Florence Knoll sofas, benches, armchairs and other furniture on 1stDibs.
A Close Look at Mid-Century Modern Furniture
Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture. The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living.
ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Emerged during the mid-20th century
- Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture
- A heyday of innovation in postwar America
- Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe
CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Simplicity, organic forms, clean lines
- A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors
- Use of natural and man-made materials — alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak; steel, fiberglass and molded plywood
- Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery
- Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors
- Promotion of functionality
MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
- Charles and Ray Eames
- Eero Saarinen
- Milo Baughman
- Florence Knoll
- Harry Bertoia
- Isamu Noguchi
- George Nelson
- Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa
ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS
- Eames lounge chair
- Nelson daybed
- Florence Knoll sofa
- Egg chair
- Womb chair
- Noguchi coffee table
- Barcelona chair
VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass.
Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively.
Architect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer.
Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.
The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by legendary manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field. The seating that Knoll created for office spaces — as well as pieces designed by Florence initially for commercial clients — soon became desirable for the home.
As the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century furniture designers caught the spirit.
Classically oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise; the British expatriate T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb, who designed holistic groups of sleek, blond wood furniture, and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in minimalist teak dining tables and lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.
As the collection of vintage mid-century modern chairs, dressers, coffee tables and other furniture for the living room, dining room, bedroom and elsewhere on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history.