Emanuela Frattini Magnusson followed in her father Gianfranco Frattini’s footsteps and graduated from the Politecnico di Milano with a master’s degree in architecture and later earn an MBA at New York University. Her first work for Knoll involved the design of its exhibition space at the 1990 Milan Triennale.1 That, in turn, resulted in the her commission to redesign Knoll’s Chicago showroom, in collaboration with Tibor Kalman, as part of a corporate rebranding to make Knoll more approachable.
When she received a commission from an Italian aluminum extrusion manufacturer to create a design exhibiting their capabilities, Frattini used the opportunity to resolve the clutter of power cables, ethernet cables and other wired peripheral devices hanging down from tabletops.2
Using the figure 8 profile for the extrusion, she conceived one side to carry the power cables and the other side to carry data and communications cables. Four extrusions would serve as legs for the table. The cables could be routed to and from the worksurface through one or two legs to the floor and nearby wall receptacles or subfloor cable trays. It was a brilliant solution, and it came to the attention of Knoll.
Knoll realized the practical application for the extrusion design in new office products, and it moved quickly to acquire the rights to the design. Frattini Magnusson was soon working with Knoll’s Design Development Group to exploit the design and it immediately found application for training tables in a range of configurations which could be used singly or easily ganged together. The design concept was expanded to include conference tables and related office furnishings.
Carl Magnusson has firsthand knowledge of how this collection got its name.
“Emanuela just thought of ‘Propeller’ as a whim,” Magnusson explained in an email, “as most products are named after designers. It stuck, unique and was memorable.”3 The Propeller Collection was introduced at NEOCON 1994 in Chicago.
In the latter 1990s, two credenzas, two sideboards and a rolling cart were added to the Propeller Collection. The four-position and six-position credenzas and the small and large sideboards did not need cable management, so the leg extrusion profile was designed to bear a family resemblance with those used on the tables. The credenzas could be ordered in a range of laminate finishes or Beech, Maple, Red Birch, Walnut, Ebonized walnut, or various shades of Mahogany. Tops were veneered to match, or Bird’s Eye Maple could be ordered. Sideboard tops were offered to match credenzas and were supplied with a perforated steel shelf with finish to match the legs.The Rolling Cart was offered with the same laminate or veneers on the Credenza.4
In the years following the Propeller Collection introduction, new table and leg designs were added, with a plethora of accessories which pushed its share of the Knoll Studio Price List to more than one hundred pages.5 In 2003, Emanuela Frattini Magnusson designed the Cecilia Chair, which won the Good Design Award after its introduction by Knoll. The credenzas, sideboards and rolling cart remained in the Knoll Price List through 2005 but were discontinued sometime thereafter.6 For collectors of Knoll in the 21st century, the Propeller credenzas, sideboards, rolling cart and Cecilia chair are highly sought today. After more than a quarter of a century in the Knoll catalog, the Propeller Collection was discontinued.
1. Brian Lutz, Knoll – A Modernist Universe. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. 2010. 246.
2. Carl Magnusson email message, September 22, 2023.
3. Carl Magnusson email message, January 23, 2024
4. KnollStudio Price List 1998.138-139, 166-167.
5. KnollStudio Price List 2008.
6, KnollStudio Price 2005, 62-63, 292-295. The credenzas, sideboards and rolling cart were not listed in the KnollStudio Price List 2008.