If you review the KnollStudio Price List or catalog, you will find as many listings for tables as there are for seating. Designer Lawrence Laske saw a table collection as an opportunity for him to interest Knoll, so he approached Carl Magnusson with his designs. Laske brought more than his sketchbook with designs, he brought an impressive design background.
Laske earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the University of Illinois. After seeing a picture in a magazine of Ettore Sottsass next to his Carlton room divider in 1985, Laske moved to Italy to do post-graduate studies at Milan’s Domus Academy. Laske was the only American in his class.1
“Shortly after Laske moved to Rome to attend Domus,” Krisann Rehbein wrote in NewCity, “he met Sottsass and was almost immediately offered a job with his studio, Sottsass Associati. At twenty-three, and before graduating Domus, a kid from Chicago’s suburbs landed smack in the middle of Milan’s postmodern design universe.”2
Laske spent several years in this culturally rich environment, and it was a transformative experience. When Laske met with Magnusson and spoke about his years in Italy and his work with Sottsass Associati and others while there, Magnusson knew here was a designer he could work with. He offered Laske a contract to design for Knoll.
Per the contract, Laske delivered to Knoll prototypes of two table designs in several sizes. These included the Saguaro tables and the Toothpick tables; together they made up the Cactus Collection. This collection was introduced at NeoCon in 1993 and remained in the Knoll catalog for fifteen years.3,4
1. “Knoll Designer Bios: Lawrence Laske.” https://www.knoll.com/designer/Lawrence-Laske.
2. Krisann Rehbein, “Selling Larry Laske: The Designer Auctions the Work of His Strange and Prolific Life for a New Adventure in Philanthropy.” NewCity, October 16, 2014. https://design.newcity.com/2014/10/16/selling-larry-laske-the-designer-auctions-the-work-of-his-strange-and-prolific-life-for-a-new-adventure-in-philanthropy/.
3. The Knoll Archive online lists the production end year as 2008, but the Laske Cactus Collection was not listed in the KnollStudio Price List 2008.
4. In 2009, Lawrence Laske was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He underwent surgery to have it removed, but the recovery virtually ended his design career. However, it did not end his desire to motivate future generations of designers. In 2014, Laske put up his entire design portfolio of sketch books, drawings, models, prototypes—including those he made for Knoll—and many other items in an auction by Wright Auctions in Chicago to raise funds for his foundation. See: http://www.abraintumorandadream.org/.