After a trip to America, Walter Knoll founded a furniture company in the mid-1920s under his own name. The son of a Stuttgart upholsterer, he had been managing his father’s business with his brothers for almost 20 years when he was inspired by the ‘New World’ and the Bauhaus style to take off in a new direction.
He was thus virtually predestined to undertake, among other things, the furnishing of the avant-garde Weissenhof housing development in Stuttgart. His “Antimott” program replaced springs and plush upholstery with elastic straps. The aluminium armchairs designed to furnish zeppelins were pioneering. Shortly before the Second World War, Walter Knoll’s eldest son, Hans, moved to the United States and founded the company Knoll International, which was to shape the fortunes of modern furniture. In the 1950s the latest pieces looked organic and Scandinavian. New methods for processing wood and metal enabled curvatures and eliminated the constraint of the right angle. In 1974 the firm’s products were presented for the first time at the Milan Furniture Show. “ Informal” and “relaxed” were the catchwords for the furnishing style of this and the following decade. Knoll managed to produce pieces in step with the taste of the times and simultaneously to push beyond it with a high level of formal quality. As reward for this persistently pursued strategy, the company started to receive large orders. The office furniture division began to gain in significance, under the brand name of Walter Knoll Office. An endlessly additive seating system was developed for Berlin’s Tegel Airport in 1975. With large jobs like this one, the company was able to prove its competence in the field of commercial furnishings, making a name for itself outside Germany as well with status-lending programs for foyers, consulting areas and executive offices – a field in which designer Wolfgang C. R. Mezger, among others, became a noted specialist. In 1993, neighbouring company Rolf Benz took over. Markus Benz, the oldest son of the founder, became managing director, sharpening the profile of a collection known for its clean to classic lines. Since that time Walter Knoll has grown worldwide and introduced more than 70 new products. High quality and comfortable functionality are a matter of course. All pieces are the work of noteworthy German and international designers. The Vienna office EOOS, Norman Foster and Pearson Lloyd of England as well as Ben van Berkel of the Netherlands figure prominently in the product range, which, particularly in the more recent pieces, exhibits a clear architectural character.