For students of the history of design, Maya Lin is known to far more people as the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. than she is for her work for Knoll. She received her bachelor’s and master’s of architecture degrees from Yale University.1 While still an undergraduate student at Yale, she entered her design proposal for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial with more than 1,400 other entries. Her design for a black granite V-shaped wall was selected and the monument was completed and opened in 1982. It has been viewed by tens of millions of visitors.
In 1998, Lin was commissioned by Knoll as part of its 60th anniversary to design a collection of furniture which included outdoor pieces of concrete and fiberglass, and interior pieces of chairs, tables and an undulating chaise lounge. The Maya Lin Collection was introduced in 1998.2
In an interview discussing the motivations of Knoll working with designers and helping to develop their designs, whether they be for the commercial or residential market, Carl Magnusson said, “All of those variables bring one back to the statement that every designer is very different to work with and you have to work to get the very best out of them. I hope in most cases we were able to do that, and of course we hope the product will be very successful for the company and the designer.
“In other cases” Magnusson explained, “it would be very appropriate, for example, for Maya Lin to do a piece that was just an elegant statement, knowing full well that the commercial results would be very different right from the beginning, but it was an important thing to do. One of the great things about Knoll was that we often chose to do the product not for the money, but because it was an important continuation of the design legacy and direction that was set by Florence Knoll.”3
The armchairs, tables and chaise lounge remained in catalog for roughly five years4, while the group of Stones seats and coffee table have remained in production.5
1. “Knoll Designer Bios: Maya Lin.” https://www.knoll.com/designer/Maya-Lin.
2. Knoll Studio, The Maya Lin Collection brochure, 1998.
3. Jane Gayduk, “Industrial Design Icon Carl Gustov Magnusson is Still Fighting the Scourge of Banal Design.” January 4, 2019. https://sixtysixmag.com/carl-gustav-magnusson/.
4. KnollStudio Price List 2005. The armchairs, tables and chaise lounge were discontinued prior to the printing of this price list.
5. The Stones seats and coffee table construction of fiberglass-reinforced concrete was changed to molded polyethylene sometime between 2005 and 2008. See KnollStudio Price List February 2025. 138-141.