Knoll Bertoia chair

Design: Harry Bertoia, 1952

Knoll Bertoia Chair - on wire!

The Knoll Bertoia chair by designer Harry Bertoia dates back to 1952. The high-gloss chair is made of chrome-plated welding wire. The Knoll International logo, which is embossed into the chair's frame, ensures its authenticity. The Bertoia chair looks graceful and light. The design icon with the delicate seat shell struts is stable and scratch-resistant. The furniture can also be used as an outdoor chair thanks to its Rilsan coating, which makes the chairs particularly scratch and impact resistant. Designer Harry Bertoia was able to apply his knowledge of metal to his wire chairs, and the design classics are also elegantly chrome-plated. The "big brother", the Diamond Chair, can also be found in the pro office store. The seat cushion for the Bertoia Chair is available in new colors, including black as a classic.

Designer Harry Bertoia

Bertoia attended the Technical College in Detroit and took lessons in art and design, then learned how to make jewelry. In 1936 he attended the School of Art, now the College for Creative Studies. In 1938 Harry Bertoia received a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he met Walter Gropius as well as Ray and Charles Eames. In 1939 he founded his first workshop for metalworking and jewelry making, but worked for the Eames couple in the furniture factory until the end of the war. Bertoia reestablished his own studio in 1950 and began working for Hans Knoll; one of his armchairs became internationally famous as the Diamond Chair and made the designer financially independent. From then on Bertoia concentrated on his work as a sculptor and also produced sound sculptures.

Manufacturer Knoll International

Hans Knoll (1914-1955) founded the Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company in New York in 1938, which became a pioneer among manufacturers of designer furniture through its collaboration with artists of the Dessau Bauhaus. He left the Schloss Salem boarding school in 1934 without a degree and began an apprenticeship as a merchant in England. In 1938 he moved to America, where he founded the "Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company". Through his contacts with renowned architects and Bauhaus designers such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he succeeded in obtaining designs and marketing the furniture, from whose sales the designers were paid royalties. Wife Florence, architect and designer, brought other well-known designers to the 1946 wedding, so to speak "with them into the marriage". After the end of the war, branches and showrooms were established worldwide from 1947 onwards, and in 1951 also in Germany, in Stuttgart. Hans Knoll died in 1955 in a tragic accident with his Porsche on the island of Cuba. In his obituary of Hans Knoll, the Finnish-American designer Eero Saarinen praised his generosity and enthusiasm. His widow Florence continued to lead the company towards success through her unerring taste. Today, Knoll stands for the epitome of elegant and forward-looking modernity.