In 1962, architect and interior designer Warren Platner began making sketches for a stylish suite of furniture that would include a lounge chair and ottoman, armchair, dining chair and tables of various sizes and heights, even a stool. The sketches evolved into design drawings with front, side and top elevations with the common structural elements of tightly spaced steel wire. His professional working relationship with Eero Saarinen in the 1950s and Saarinen’s architectural office in the early 1960s bolstered his design abilities and handling of client projects.
Florence Knoll Bassett had sold the company to Art Metal, a large manufacturer of office furniture, in 1959. She stepped down as president of the company, and Cornell Dechert took over the responsibility. However, she remained as Knoll’s director of design from 1960 to 1965. In 1962, Platner took his completed designs to Knoll with the hope of getting them into production.1 As director of design, Knoll-Bassett approved the Platner Collection– distinct from Harry Bertoia’s wire seating group–but much remained to be done.
The design of this furniture, method of fabrication and weldment were so unique that Platner, in association with Knoll, filed a patent in November 1962, and Patent No. 3,226,161 was granted in December 1965. The work within Knoll’s design and development groups to refine the designs and establish feasible manufacturing of these wire structures was challenging.
“Platner’s designs were the subject of differing opinions within the Knoll design group,” Brian Lutz writes, “the products’ harshest critics taking exception to the decorative nature of the designs.”2 Knoll introduced the Platner Collection in 1966 and met with critical acclaim, going on to become a great commercial success for Knoll which has remained in production ever since.
Platner himself had this to say about his first collection for Knoll: “You hope to produce a classic. A classic is something, every time you look at it, you accept it as it is and you can see no way of improving it. You can refine something forever, but you reach a point where you are moving backwards. I never designed anything that I wanted to change to improve it.”3
The Platner Collection for Knoll was included in the Knoll au Louvre exhibition held at the Pavillon de Marsan Musée des Arts Décratifs in Paris from January to March 1972. The prestigious exhibition elevated Knoll’s status as the premier manufacturer of modern furniture and Warren Platner’s reputation as a designer grew even further.
The architectural offices of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Milwaukee-based Fitzhug Scott-Architects, Inc. received the commission to design the new corporate headquarters for the Mortgage Guarantee Investment Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and scheduled for completion in 1973. Warren Platner’s office received the contract to design the new headquarters interiors. The clients expressed to Platner their desire for unique new furnishings for the upper management offices.4 Platner got to work sketching designs that evolved into formal drawings. Knoll had numerous collections designed by architects, including Platner himself, so it was natural for him to approach Knoll and present his designs for a new executive office collection that included desks, desk extensions, tables, and credenzas.
The designs Platner presented to Knoll started with a desktop having a cross-section of less than three inches with a solid oak bullnose perimeter, and black leather writing surface, supported by two polished chrome plated thick-wall steel tubes and cast aluminum or bronze legs also polished and chrome plated. Underneath the desk could be mounted storage drawers in several configurations and upholstered in matching leather. The desk employed offset-mounted columns with asymmetric legs; the conference tables employed centerline-mounted columns with symmetrical legs. The round table employed three column and leg assemblies used on the credenzas and spaced 120 degrees.
Rectangular and round conference tables continued the design theme of the desk. Credenzas in several lengths had the same oak bullnose and leather insert top with matching leather-covered storage pedestals with the same legs and feet. The full-length six-pedestal credenza could even be offered with upper storage cabinets or shelves with the addition of the chrome steel tubes mated to the tops of the legs. Thirty different Spinneybeck Velluto Pelle leather colors were offered.
Platner completed all the designs for this new furniture in 19735 and every furniture piece—many specific to this commission–had to be manufactured and delivered to the MGIC headquarters during completion of the interiors. This new collection did not include new Platner executive seating, so the lengthy design, development and testing normally associated with seating was not an issue. Platner specified a management chair he had designed for another company that was in production.
Knoll introduced the Platner Executive Collection in 1974. In Knoll – A Modernist Universe (Rizzoli, 2010) author Brian Lutz notes the Collection was manufactured from 1974 to 1980. However, production resumed in 19886 and continued through 2000.7
1. Brian Lutz. Knoll – A Modernist Universe. (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2010). 166.
2. Ibid.
3. Eric Larrabee. Knoll Design. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), 157.
4. Warren Platner. Ten by Warren Platner. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975), 90-115.
5. “The Platner Executive Office Collection.” KnollStudio brochure, 1988.
6. KnollStudio Price List 1988, 116-125.
7. KnollStudio Price List 2000, 144-151. Production may have continued after 2000, but was not listed in the KnollStudio Price List 2005.