When the design firm of Roberto Lucci and Paolo Orlandini approached Knoll in the early 1990s with the concept of an office chair, this design team had decades of successful products numbering in the hundreds, not just in Italy but manufactured by companies worldwide. They had formed their design partnership in 1968 in Milan, Italy and their business grew during the golden age of Italian Design. The designers took a holistic approach to the design of products for the consumer, but some of their most memorable and enduring products involved seating.1
Knowing the range of office chairs Knoll had in production at the time, including the Pollock, Zapf, and Sapper executive chairs, Lucci and Orlandini designed a task chair almost entirely of injection molded parts that could be quickly manufactured and offered either upholstered or unupholstered.
Working with Knoll’s Design Development Group, polypropylene was selected for the one-piece shell that would provide a degree of flexibility to aid in comfort. The arms and base would be glass-reinforced nylon. The upholstery was injection molded urethane foam with bonded fabric. The chair could be ordered with or without arms. There were six variants of the task chair, all with casters, and two variants of the side chair having sled base.2 The chair was not only designed for aesthetics and comfort but also for intuitive assembly; each chair could be assembled in a matter of minutes.
This chair was given the name SoHo and it went into production in 1994. It won numerous design awards. The SoHo Chair filled a vital niche in Knoll’s office seating catalog, and it remained in production for fifteen years.3
1. “Designers: Lucci & Orlandini.” https://www.segis-usa.com/company/.
2. Knoll Office Seating Price List 2008.166-169.
3. “1994 Product – The SoHo Chair.” https://www.knoll.com/the-archive/.