When Charles and Ray Eames opened their Design Office in Los Angeles in 1941, it became a crucible of creativity. Their Office attracted designers and craftsmen who would influence and be influenced by the environment there. An Eames Design Office photo taken shows Charles and Rae Eames seated on their Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) 1948 competitive entry La Chaise, surrounded by staff members Robert Jacobsen, Charles Kratka, Frances Bishop, Jay Conners, Fred Usher and Don Albinson.1
While Albinson was studying at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, two of his professors were Charles Eames and Harry Bertoia. He received hands-on furniture design experience as a student assisting Eames and Eero Saarinen in the creation of molded plywood chairs and other pieces for the MOMA “Organic Design in Home Furnishing” competition in 1940. Against more than 500 entries, many from furniture manufacturers, the academic team of Eames, Saarinen and Albinson designs won two of the categories.2
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Albinson was drafted into the Navy, trained as a pilot, and served until the end of the war. The Eames welcomed Albinson to their office in 1946. Molded plywood chair development was ongoing, and Albinson was also involved in molded fiberglass and resin chair design and production development from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. He also worked on wire-mesh chairs of Eames own design, the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman (still in production today) and the Aluminum Group of office seating that began in 1958. Albinson was listed as co-inventor with Eames on several of the design patents filed by the Design Office.
Sometime after 1960, Albinson wanted to move on, establish his own design office in Los Angeles and teach at UCLA. In 1964, his life took another turn when Knoll, perhaps Florence Knoll Bassett herself, contacted Albinson with the offer of becoming head of the Design Development Group.3 Knoll Bassett was planning to retire from the company in 1965; Albinson’s affiliation with Eames, Saarinen and Bertoia, and his working experience over the previous decade made him a natural choice. Albinson accepted the position.
When Albinson arrived at Knoll, he came not only as a designer, but as a design engineer. He had been steeped in not just design evolution but product development and manufacturing methods, some of which had never been used in furniture production before. There were three furniture projects under development at Knoll that needed his expertise for them to reach production. They included a design by Don Pettit that employed thin layers of wood for the chair frame, Charles Pollock’s second chair design for Knoll with an aluminum rim and injection molded shell4, and a seating and table collection architect Warren Platner first presented to Knoll in 1962.
While Albinson set to work on these production challenges, he was presented with a fourth involving the need in Knoll’s product line for a new stacking chair to meet the needs of its institutional customers. In 1951, Knoll had introduced the award-winning Domus stacking chair designed by Ilman Tapiovaara with molded plywood seat and back. It remained in production until 19575, but the wood’s durability in a stacking chair was not ideal, and the chairs did not nest in a compact manner. Richard Schultz had designed the No.148 side chair and its variant No. 149 stacking side chair in 1960. These chairs had plastic shells and padded seating having an aluminum base with polished or fused plastic finish. The design of this chair prevented more than five chairs stacked at a time.
Fortuitously, Albinson had worked on a thin profile aluminum and one-piece plastic shell stacking chair while working at the Eames Design Office in the 1950s. Now, he had the opportunity to improve upon it and had the manufacturing capability of Knoll to make it happen. Albinson had filed a U. S. design patent for the chair shortly after arriving at Knoll, with the subsequent patent granted three years later.6
After constructing several models to evaluate the design and stacking capability, Albinson progressed to full-scale prototypes. These prototypes used machined aluminum legs, leg spanner and seat to seatback connectors. Production chairs featured cast aluminum components and injection molded plastic seat and back . Particular attention focused on the lowest profile possible for stacking with the only contact made by the legs and no interference of the seat or back with the chair above. These chairs underwent durability testing and reliability of the chair ganging feature to connect one chair to the next. Albinson also designed a dolly so stacked chairs could be transported and stored.
Knoll introduced the low-cost Albinson Chair in 19657, the same year as the luxurious Pollock executive chair. Albinson’s chair became an immediate sales success and the choice of high schools, colleges and universities, churches, convention centers and many other venues. The Knoll Price List listed single, double and triple chair units, a matching stacking table, a chair-table-chair unit, bolt-on tablet arm, under chair bookrack, and two different dollies to transport the stacked chairs.8
The Albinson Chair and its variants remained in production for a decade and was a triumph of utilitarian industrial design.
1. Gloria. Koenig, Charles & Ray Eames – Pioneers of Mid-Century Modernism. (Köln: TASCHEN, 2023), 12.
2. Christine Rae, Knoll au Louvre: Catalog of the Exhibition held at the Pavilion de Marsan Musée des Arts Décoratifs 107, rue de Rivoli, Paris. January 12 to March 12, 1972. (New York: Chantcleer Press for Knoll International, Inc., 1971). Unpaginated.
3. Ibid.
4. While it was Charles Pollock who designed the striking executive chair that bore his name, it was Don Albinson and Robert Helms who developed the aluminum extrusion retaining features for upholstery welting and separate slot to retain the injection molded shell. U.S. Patent No. 3,298,743 lists Don C. Albinson and C. Robert Helms as the inventors of this upholstery and exterior shell retention design.
5. Brian Lutz, Knoll – A Modernist Universe. (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. 2010), 132.
6. Albinson, Don C. Base Construction for Furniture and Utility Chair. US Patent 3,328,075 filed May 1, 1964 and issued June 27, 1967.
7. “1965 Product – The Albinson Stacking Chair.” https://www.knoll.com/the-archive/.
8. Furniture Price List 1973, Knoll International Inc. 45.