Brian Lutz, author of Knoll: A Modernist Universe, spoke at Hunt Library Tuesday night about the Knoll Furniture Company and the history of modern furniture design.
With more than 80 different styles of chairs to choose from, Hunt Library has numerous options for students. Throughout his lecture, Lutz addressed four Knoll chairs that can be found throughout the library, and the designers that made their existence possible.
Lutz spoke in particular about four pieces of furniture that sit in the Hunt Library including the MR Chair designed in 1927, the Barcelona Chair designed in 1929, the Womb Chair designed in 1948 and the Bertoia Diamond Chair designed in 1952.
“So what in the world are we doing with chairs this old in a building of this caliber? It’s because Knoll is in the details,” Lutz said.
After Hunts Knoll founded the company in 1938, he emphasized that his company brought European modern design to America.
“Knoll strayed away from the saying ‘form follows function,’ because if this was true every chair would look exactly the same,” Lutz said. “Instead, form accommodates structure, the form follows culture.”
In 1927, Knoll designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created the MR Chair. This chair is formed using cold rolled steel which allows for more play in the movement of the legs. And although it is simplistic in design, many, including Lutz see the “beauty in the art of the piece” in that nothing like it had been thought of before.
During the same year, van der Rohe began experimenting with sketches based off folding chairs, according to Lutz.
This prompted him to create the Barcelona chair which went into production in 1929. These chairs feature multiple leather squares that were “sewn in such a way that you knew they would last for decades” Lutz said.
“I was shocked to hear how much they cost, especially when we have so many. But at the same time it is special to have pieces of furniture that reflect the history of modern design so well,” Nickolas Gregory, a freshman in design studies, said in response to the $5,429 price tag of the Barcelona chair. “Now we just have to worry about people appreciating these pieces for what they are.”
The third Knoll chair patrons can find within the Hunt library is the Womb Chair designed by Eero Saarinen in 1948. It is unique in that it was the first chair to be made from molded plastic, according to Lutz. This allowed for the design to be lightweight, stronger and easier to produce on a large scale.
In 1952, Harry Bertoia, an Italian wire sculpture artist, created what is known as the Bertoia Diamond Chair. The company uniquely decided to create a separate stainless steel workshop to produce the first 200 forms of this chair to ensure the production was done correctly, Lutz said.
“I think all of the chairs at Hunt Library are beautiful and unique, but not all of them are comfortable” Jordan Stokes, a sophomore in fashion textile management said. “And it doesn’t surprise me that some of the chairs are inspired by time periods as early as the 1920’s. A lot of the chairs feel very retro or antiqued. Out of those four, my favorite would have to be the Womb Chair.”
