Platner Lounge Chair by Warren Platner for Knoll International

Though his vintage furniture and interiors are icons of mid-century modernism, architect and furniture designer Warren Platner took his stylistic inspiration from as far back as 18th-century France, once saying about his seminal collection for Knoll that his design intent was to evoke “the kind of decorative, gentle, graceful kind of design that appeared in period style like Louis XV.”

Indeed, the marriage of modern sensibility and classical grace is a marker of Platner’s style across furnishings and interiors — both genres in which he left an enduring legacy.

Born in 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland, Platner studied architecture at Cornell before cutting his teeth working for design icons like Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, eventually serving as head of interior design in the latter’s office. In 1965, Platner opened his own office, in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he continued to hone his particular brand of graceful modernism.

Knoll released the Platner Collection of seating and tables in 1966. (Originally designed in 1962, the suite took nearly four years of development to bring to life.) The decorative bent-metal-and-glass pieces — an armchair, a dining table and more — make certain nods to the trademarks of his former employers, but also to the shapes of historic European furniture. The sculptural elegance of his line recalls Saarinen’s iconic Tulip collection, which includes armchairs and dining tables, while his materiality aligns with Roche’s cutting-edge use of glass and metal for the headquarters of the Ford Foundation in New York.

Many of Platner’s Knoll pieces would go on to find homes in a certain fabled locale: the Windows on the World restaurant at the original World Trade Center, whose interiors Platner was tapped to outfit in the mid-1970s. Upon the opening of the restaurant in 1976, New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger dubbed its style “sensuous modernism” — an apt tagline for Platner’s oeuvre as a whole.

Platner died in 2006 at the age of 86. His furniture is still produced by Knoll, and original examples — along with idiosyncratic custom works he created for interior design clients — are coveted by collectors today.

Find vintage Warren Platner furniture on 1stDibs.

No other business of its kind did more than the Herman Miller Furniture Company to introduce modern design into American homes. Working with legendary designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson and Alexander Girard, the Zeeland, Michigan-based firm fostered some of the boldest expressions of what we now call mid-century modern style. In doing so, Herman Miller produced some of the most beautiful, iconic and, one can even say, noblest furniture ever.

Founded in 1923, Herman Miller was originally known for grand historicist bedroom suites: heavily ornamented wood furniture that appealed to a high-minded, wealthier clientele. The company — named for its chief financial backer — began to suffer in the early 1930s as the Great Depression hit, and D.J. De Pree, the company’s CEO, feared bankruptcy. In 1932, aid came in the form of Gilbert Rohde, a self-taught furniture designer who had traveled widely in Europe, absorbing details of the Art Deco movement and other modernist influences. After persuading De Pree that the growing middle-class required smaller, lighter household furnishings, Rohde set a new course for Herman Miller, creating sleek chairs, tables and cabinetry that were the essence of the Streamline Moderne style.

Rohde died suddenly in 1944. The following year, De Pree turned to George Nelson, an architect who had written widely about modern furniture design. Under Nelson’s leadership, Herman Miller would embrace new technologies and materials and audacious biomorphic forms. Some of the pieces the company produced are now emblems of 20th century American design, including the Eames lounge chair and ottoman and Nelson’s Marshmallow sofa and Coconut chair. As you can see on 1stDibs, such instantly recognizable furnishings have become timeless — staples of a modernist décor; striking, offbeat notes in traditional environments.