Vintage Black Leather B3 Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer for Knoll International, 1980

A Little on Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer, born in 1902, was a Hungarian born Furniture designer and one of the masters of Modernism. Having left home at 18 years old, Breuer became one of the first, and the youngest, students at the Bauhaus. His talents were quickly recognized and he was put in charge of the carpentry shop. In 1927, seven years after joining the Bauhaus, Breuer was put in charge of interiors, which led him to his first furniture assignment. In the 1930s Breuer left Nazi Germany and moved to London, where he was employed at the Isokon company – a prominent modernist design company. While working for this company he designed the long chair, which came about due to his experimentations with bent and formed plywood. In 1941 Breuer decided to establish his own practice in New York City, which he ran until his death in 1981.

The Style of Marcel Breuer

It is pretty easy to spot a Marcel Breuer due to their particular modernist style, and curved edges. While working at the Bauhaus, Breuer revolutionized Mid-Century modern interiors by using tubular steel to create frames, taking inspiration from bicycle construction and local plumbers. When working in London he began experimenting with wood – especially with plywood – employing the same curved techniques to the thin wood. The Wassily Chair, the most famous piece designed by Marcel Breuer, is rumoured to have been designed for the artist Wassily Kandinsky, though this has never been proven. With his signature tubular steel frame, the leather creates a comfortable and practical chair for all rooms.

Marcel Breuer and His Architecture

Though Marcel Breuer is a very well recognized furniture designer, he is probably best known for his contribution to architecture. One of his contributions was the 'binuclear' house – creating separate wings for the bedroom and the living room, separated by a hall. His first two important buildings were the UNESCO Headquarters in Pari, and the Master Plan and Church at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. Breuer went on to design over 100 buildings in his 30 years as a architect. In 1968, he was awarded the Gold medal of the American Institute of Architects at their 100th convention.

Marcel Breuer at Pamono

Marcel Breuer produced many great pieces of furniture during his years working in interiors at Bauhaus. At Pamono we have carefully curated and hand picked some of his Design Classics to ensure all pieces are top-quality. Breuer's office and desk chairs are particularly well known and featured in our collection. With our strict quality controls and sage online payments, Pamono guarantees customer satisfaction.

Hans Knoll was born in 1914 in Stuttgart, Germany, into the successful manufacturing family behind Walter Knoll & Co. Early-20th-century Germany was an epicenter of modernist design theory—most notably expressed in the products and practices of the Deutscher Werkbund association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists, as well as the influential Bauhaus school—which advocated for design rooted in the principles of rationality, functionalism, and mass production. This milieu had a profound influence on Hans and inspired him to produce furniture for the new age. In 1937, after a stint in London, he moved to the United States and brought his modernist vision with him.

Florence Knoll (neé Schust) was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1917 and from an early age exhibited a strong interest in architecture. After graduating from the Kingswood School for Girls in 1934, she moved across campus to the newly formed, Bauhaus-inspired Cranbrook Academy of Art to study architecture under recent émigré, Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen. There she befriended future design luminaries Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. She went on to Columbia University’s School of Architecture to study town planning. In 1937, she apprenticed under former-Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a few years later, enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became a life-long mentor to her.

In 1938, Hans Knoll established The Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company as a furniture exporter in a small space on East 72nd Street in New York City. As the company quickly grew, it evolved into a manufacturing business. In 1941, he opened his first plant in a former dance hall in East Greenville, Pennsylvania and hired Danish designer Jens Risom, who eventually helped him develop the first, original Knoll furniture designs. That same year, Hans met Florence on an interior design project and, recognizing her exceptional taste and eye, hired her to bring in business with architects and interior designers and, later, to provide in-house planning and interior design expertise for a growing corporate clientele. In 1946, Hans and Florence married and renamed the company Knoll Associates. That same year, the Knolls formally established the Planning Unit, solidifying the company’s role in the design of interior spaces. In 1951, Knoll International was launched as the German and French arms of Knoll, producing Knoll designs for the European market. Sadly, Hans died in a tragic car crash in 1955, but Florence remained actively involved until she retired in 1965.

Knoll’s signature pieces include Breuer’s Wassily Chair (1925), Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair (1929/1948), Harry Bertoia’s Diamond Chair (1952), Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Armchair (1957), as well as Florence‘s own furniture collection developed through the 1950s. Knoll’s impressive catalogue includes a who’s-who list of midcentury modern and contemporary design figures, including Jens Risom, Alexander Girard, George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi, Richard Schultz, Warren Platner, Charles Pollock, Andrew Morrison & Bruce Hannah, Vignelli Associates, Richard Sapper, Maya Lin, Frank Gehry, and Rem Koolhaas. As of this writing, Knoll’s most recent collaboration is with David Adjaye, who designed the Washington Collection for Knoll and the Adjaye Collection for KnollTextiles. Today, the company is particularly focused on meeting the evolving needs of the 21st-century workplace.

In 2011, Knoll received the National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. The award recognized Knoll’s legacy in American modern design and the company’s commitment to promoting the relationship between good design and quality of life. Knoll designs can be found in the permanent design collections of institutions around the world, including more than 30 acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

* All images courtesy Knoll, Inc. The David Adjaye Skeleton Chair was photographed by Joshua McHugh.