Knoll

Florence Knoll Low Tables

Designed by Florence Knoll, 1954

The Florence Knoll Coffee Table, designed to furnish the new interiors of postwar America, is a scaled-down translation of the lines, gestures, and materials of modern architecture. Consistent with all of her designs, the table has a spare, geometric presence that reflects the rational design approach Florence Knoll learned from Mies van der Rohe.

Share
Florence Knoll low table thumbnail

Details

FEATURES

A range of square and rectangular tables for use in the home or office.
KnollStudio logo and Florence Knoll's signature are stamped on the inside of leg.
Construction
Rectangular and square welded steel frame, glass or marble top.

Marble coated with transparent polyester finish to help eliminate use associated stains.


FINISHES

Base available in polished chrome finish. The model with the table top cm 75 x 75 is also available with satin chrome finish.

Top available in clear glass or different marble colours.


AWARDS

American Institute of Interior Designers First Award, 1954

Dimensions

FLORENCE KNOLL LOW TABLES

Square tables

60cm W x 60cm D x 43cm H.

75/90cm W x 75/90cm D x 48cm H.

60/75/90/120/140cm W x 60/75/90/120/140cm D x 35cm H.

Rectangular table

114cm W x 57cm D x 43cm H.

114cm W x 57cm D x 35 cm H.


Related Products


Product Story image

As head of the Knoll Planning unit, Florence Knoll always approached furniture design with the larger space in mind. Most important to her was how a piece fit into the greater design — the room, the floor, the building. Every element of a Knoll-planned space supported the overall design and complemented the existing architecture.

Never one to compromise, Florence would often design furniture when she, “needed the piece of furniture for a job and it wasn’t there.” And while she never regarded herself as a furniture designer, her quest for harmony of space and consistency of design led her to design several of Knoll’s most iconic pieces of furniture—all simple, none plain.

As skyscrapers rose up across America during the post-war boom, Florence Knoll saw it as her job to translate the vocabulary and rationale of the modern exterior to the interior space of the corporate office. Thus, unlike Saarinen and Bertoia, her designs were architectural in foundation, not sculptural. She scaled down the rhythm and details of modern architecture while humanising them through colour and texture. Her occasional table collection, designed in 1954 to complement her eponymous lounge collection, is a perfect example of her restrained, geometric approach to furniture, clearly derived from her favourite mentor, Mies van der Rohe.

Designer image

While a student at the Kingswood School on the campus of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Florence Knoll Bassett (née Schust) became a protegée of Eero Saarinen. She studied architecture at Cranbrook, the Architectural Association in London and the Armour Institute (Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago). She worked briefly for Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Wallace K. Harrison. In 1946, she became a full business and design partner and married Hans Knoll, after which they formed Knoll Associates. She was at once a champion of world-class architects and designers and an exceptional architect in her own right. As a pioneer of the Knoll Planning Unit, she revolutionised interior space planning. Her belief in "total design" – embracing architecture, manufacturing, interior design, textiles, graphics, advertising and presentation – and her application of design principles in solving space problems were radical departures from the standard practice in the 1950s, but were quickly adopted and remain widely used today. For her extraordinary contributions to architecture and design, Florence Knoll was accorded the National Endowment for the Arts' prestigious 2002 National Medal of Arts.