Dezeen’s guide to mid-century modern design from A to Z
To conclude our mid-century modern series, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about the design and architecture movement from A to Z. More
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Original mid-century Chandigarh furniture exhibited in collector’s London townhouse
Collector Rajan Bijlani has opened up his London residence for an exhibition featuring highlights from his 500-piece collection of furniture made for Le Corbusier’s master plan of Chandigarh in the 1950s and 60s. More
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Verner Panton preferred experimentation to “beautiful platitude”
Verner Panton caused a sensation with his pioneering approach to furniture and lighting design. For our mid-century modern series, we profile the Danish designer whose colourful pieces and interiors define an era. More
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Florence Knoll Bassett “led an office revolution”
As part of our mid-century modern series, we portray Florence Knoll Bassett, who transformed how we think of office design with her streamlined furniture and leadership of design brand Knoll.
Under Knoll, Florence Knoll, as she was then called, brought modern lines and a human-centric design ethos to the American office environment. As well as leading the company’s interior design arm, the Planning Unit, she designed furniture for its collections and developed its aesthetic identity.
She was also known for professionalising the mid-century interior design industry, combining her extensive architectural training with an eye for form and combatting the notion that interior design was the same as decorating.
Florence Knoll (left) worked with designers and architects including Eero Saarinen. Photo courtesy of KnollIn a 1964 New York Times article about her, titled “Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modern Design; Florence Knoll Gave Business ‘Living’ a New Look”, she said that offices had changed from being ‘decorated’ to being designed.
“I am not a decorator,” she said in the article. “The only place I decorate is my own house.”Knoll was founded by Florence Knoll’s husband Hans Knoll, who was in the process of developing the company in New York City when the pair met in 1941.
In 1943, Florence Knoll joined the burgeoning company as a designer and soon after became a full business partner upon the couple’s marriage in 1944.Office design pioneer Florence Knoll Bassett dies aged 101
Today, Knoll is known for its portfolio of office furniture, including notable designs such as the Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe, the Wassily Lounge Chair by Marcel Breuer, and the Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen – three pieces Florence Knoll commissioned herself through her many long-standing connections in the architecture world.
She also created seating, tables, and storage systems for office interiors that were meant as “fill-in” pieces – uncomplicated designs that complemented the more flashy products by her peers.
“People ask me if I am a furniture designer,” she said. “I am not. I never really sat down and designed furniture. I designed the fill-in pieces that no one else was doing. I designed sofas because no one was designing sofas.”
Among her best-known pieces are the T Angle series of tables, which were constructed from a steel base and have laminate tops. These include a dining table, coffee tables and numerous other versions.
Her Executive Desk, part of her Executive series and also known as the Partner’s Desk, with its rosewood top and splayed chrome-plated steel base, still looks modern today and is still produced by Knoll.
Planning Unit specialised in corporate office interiors
Her Lounge Collection, created in 1954, also epitomizes her approach. It encompassed a tufted lounge chair, sofa, settee, and bench that sat upon geometric, metal frames.
Today, these pieces are treasured additions to household or corporate spaces, but Florence Knoll originally created them as a backdrop for the office interiors she designed while she led the Knoll Planning Unit.
Founded by Florence Knoll in 1946, the Planning Unit consisted of a small group of Knoll designers that created corporate office interiors for prominent companies such as the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Cowles Publications and CBS.
Led by Florence Knoll’s exacting eye, the small team was tasked with designing furniture, textiles and objects for a space.
Florence Knoll designed the interiors for the CBS building in New YorkIn the 1960s, Florence Knoll designed the interiors of a new CBS headquarters in New York City, housed in a black-clad skyscraper by friend Eero Saarinen.
“Her job embraces everything from the choice of wall coverings – sometimes felt or tweed for the sake of acoustics – to ashtrays, pictures and door handles,” the New York Times said of her involvement in the project.
“She has led people to see that texture in fabrics can be as interesting as a print (she dislikes prints) and that steel legs on tables, chairs and sofas can have grace and elegance.”
Bespoke pieces usually custom-made for interior projects
The bespoke furniture that Florence Knoll designed for projects such as the CBS headquarters would then be folded into the Knoll catalogue.
“The spaces suggest the furniture, and sometimes that furniture was not in our catalog,” Vincent Cafiero, an early member of the Planning Unit, said.
During this period, Florence Knoll also started a textile program at the company, which would become Knoll Textiles. This saw her develop a “tagged sample and display system”, a technique used industry-wide today.
As Knoll grew, Florence Knoll would also shape much of the company’s identity and practices.
She worked with designer Herbert Matter to create branding for Knoll, including its advertisements, stationary and logo, imbuing its branding with the same straightforward style as her personal work.
Florence Knoll also filled the company’s catalogue with commissions from her many connections, gathered during her architectural training at schools including he Cranbrook Academy of Art, Columbia University, Architectural Association and Illinois Institute of Technology.
Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair is among the pieces commissioned by Florence Knoll. Photo by Adrià GoulaBorn and raised in Michigan, her training began in earnest at age 12, when Florence was orphaned after the death of her father at age 5 and mother at 12.
Her guardian encouraged her to choose a boarding school, where the young Florence chose the Kingswood School for Girls, a school on the same grounds as Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Eilel Saarinen, Cranbrook’s then headmaster and designer of both schools, noticed Florence’s interest in architecture and eventually “virtually adopted” Florence into the Saarinen family, according to Knoll.
Mies van der Rohe was “teacher and friend”
She would go on to befriend his son, Eero, and other prominent designers during her studies and beyond including Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Isamu Noguchi and George Nakashima.
Florence was also mentored by architects Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.
Designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who she studied under at the Illinois Institute of Technology, had perhaps the most lasting influence on her style, as seen in her methodical, detail-oriented approach.
“Like her teacher and friend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ms Knoll Bassett’s attention to detail was all-encompassing, relentless, and, over time, the stuff of legend,” said Knoll.The organic designs of Eero Saarinen went “beyond the measly ABC” of modernism
Her colleagues held her “unerring” taste in high regard.
“Each time I go East I see something you have done,” wrote Charles Eames in a 1957 letter to Florence Knoll. “It is always good, and I feel grateful to you for doing such work in a world where mediocrity is the norm.”
Upon Hans Knoll’s sudden death in 1955, Florence Knoll took over leadership of the company as president until 1960, when she switched back into a design and development role and moved to Florida with her second husband Henry Hood Bassett.
She officially retired from the company in 1965 at age 48.
Under her five years as president Knoll doubled in size, cementing its status as a leader in the design industry.
“[Florence Knoll] probably did more than any other single figure to create the modern, sleek, postwar American office, introducing contemporary furniture and a sense of open planning into the work environment,” wrote The Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger in 1984.
In 1961, Florence Knoll became the first woman to receive the Gold Medal for Industrial Design from the American Institute of Architects, and in 2003 she was presented with the National Medal of Arts.
“We have lost one of the great design forces of the 20th century,” Goldberger said when Florence Knoll died in 2019. “Florence Knoll Bassett may have done more than anyone else to create what we think of as the ‘Mad Men’ design of the midcentury modern workspace.”
Illustration by Jack BedfordMid-century modern
This article is part of Dezeen’s mid-century modern design series, which looks at the enduring presence of mid-century modern design, profiles its most iconic architects and designers, and explores how the style is developing in the 21st century.
This series was created in partnership with Made – a UK furniture retailer that aims to bring aspirational design at affordable prices, with a goal to make every home as original as the people inside it. Elevate the everyday with collections that are made to last, available to shop now at made.com.Read more: More
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Nicemakers renovates Swiss chalet interiors with mid-century modern furniture
In the village of Adelboden in Switzerland, Amsterdam-based Nicemakers has transformed the interiors of The Brecon, a hundred-year-old chalet, into a secluded retreat.
The intention for the 18-room chalet, called The Brecon, was for it to be “like a high-end version of your own home,” Nicemakers head of design Lottie Lorenzetti told Dezeen. The studio wanted the hotel rooms to feel like guest rooms in someone’s home.
Rooms at The Brecon have been styled to feel like guests are staying in “a home away from home””We set out from the very beginning with the intention of not creating another clean, minimal, Swiss hotel aesthetic,” Lorenzetti added.
The client, hotel operator Grant Maunder, wanted to create “a hideaway which feels like a dream home”.
Across the common spaces, 18 rooms and four suites of the boutique hotel, Nicemakers worked with Maunder to fulfil the brief by creating a series of intimate and characterful interiors with a domestic feel.On entry through a bespoke wooden revolving door, the open-plan lounge space progresses into dining and living areas, featuring a sofa tucked away in a secluded nook.
A two-seater sofa is tucked in a dimly lit nook off the main living areaThe interiors throughout are decorated with wooden panelling and integrated bookshelves, free-standing lamps and mismatched mid-century modern furniture.
Mantel pieces and coffee tables display a collection of objects, candles and incense holders, statement one-off ashtrays and magazines that were chosen to add to the domestic feel.
Nicemakers worked with Amsterdam’s Bisou Gallery to select relevant and personal artworks for the walls of The Brecon.
Coffee tables are filled with homely items like boardgames, candles and matchesTimber, stone, leather and wool, in an earthy palette chosen to complement the hotel’s mountain surroundings, have been used throughout the interior scheme.
On the ground floor, Nicemaker placed a few casual breakfast tables by an open kitchen to evoke the sense of being a guest in someone’s spacious home.
The spa, which has a sauna, steam and treatment rooms, and the infinity pool on the terrace looking down the valley to the Engstligen waterfalls, were finished at the scale of a generous private residence, the studio said.
A crazy-paving entrance space leads through to the open kitchenThe unusual concept for the retreat – in a small town with several more traditional hotels – was executed with a mid-century modern design approach.
The resulting interiors contrast with the traditional chalet style found in Switzerland.
Other unusual design details include the repeated use of crazy paving indoors; in the elevators and entranceway, on bedroom balconies and around the pool area.
Unusual paving has been used around the hotel interiors and exteriors”The crazy paving was a hugely labour-intensive design element – it took a long time to lay and needed a skilled person who came from Wales to do this,” Lorenzetti said.
Continuing the family affair, all the ceramic crockery was handmade in Wales by Andréa Anderson, who is married to the client Grant Maunder.
The rooms do not feature mini bar fridges, but rather a variety of cabinetsOriginally Nicemakers had plans for bespoke mini bar cabinets, bedside tables and the same armchairs in each room.
However, the studio concluded this would have gone against the hotel’s domestic concept.
“You wouldn’t have a mini bar fridge in your own guest room at home,” explained Lorenzetti.Christian Louboutin and Madalena Caiado create “most extravagant and most traditional” hotel in Portugal
This decision meant that – instead of using the same suite of bespoke elements throughout the hotel – individual items could be sourced and curated for each room.
“[This] gave the rooms a much more collected, rather than manufactured, feel”, Lorenzetti said.
An original fireplace was preserved in the new spa areaNicemakers’ design was also informed by some of the original elements from the 1950s and ’60s heyday of the building, which was originally built in 1914.
Textured plaster, the original red mosaic tiles in the stairwell and the mottled glass all draw from the history of the site. A pre-existing fireplace in the spa was also preserved.
Vintage and new items were sourced from all over Europe, especially vintage markets in Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and France.
The palette of the scheme was chosen to reflect the natural surroundingsThe mix of patterns and details was intentional.
“[We wanted] to imitate a collected mix of items, to steer away from the classic minimal and clean, expected, Swiss aesthetic”, Lorenzetti concluded.
Other projects in Switzerland recently featured in Dezeen include a 1960s chalet in Zinal renovated by Giona Bierens de Haan Architectures and an extension to a school in Aeschi by Haller Gut Architekten.
The photography is by Michael Sinclair.Read more: More
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Jens Quistgaard Around The Table celebrates legacy of “world-famous unknown Dane”
An exhibition during 3 Days of Design showcased the vast archive of Jens Quistgaard, who is one of Denmark’s most successful designers, despite being relatively unknown.
Quistgaard, who passed away in 2008, was responsible for bringing Scandinavian design to homes across America.
As chief designer for US-based homeware manufacturer and retailer Dansk Designs for three decades, he designed more than 4,000 objects, many distributed to hundreds of stores nationwide.
Jens Quistgaard Around The Table showcased furniture and tableware by the late Danish designerQuistgaard’s name is nowhere near as well known as the products he designed, so his contribution to Danish design history is largely unrecognised.
With Jens Quistgaard Around The Table, archive consultancy Form Portfolios hoped to promote a wider appreciation of this “world-famous unknown Dane”.The exhibition was on show at Form Portfolios’ Copenhagen office for 3 Days of Design.
A dining table showcased many of the products Quistgaard developed for Dansk Designs”With his 30-year collaboration with Dansk, Quistgaard was the design genius behind the scenes of that seminal brand,” said Mark Masiello, CEO and founder of Form Portfolios.
“He was more committed to bringing Scandinavian modern design into American homes than building his own design legacy,” he told Dezeen.
Quistgaard’s series of sculptural peppermills was displayed on the wallQuistgaard was recruited in 1954 by Dansk Designs founders Martha and Ted Nierenberg, who were impressed by a cutlery set that the designer had previously developed.
Many of the designs that Quistgaard produced for the brand were tableware and kitchenware, which is why Form Portfolios made a dining table the focal point of its exhibition.
The designer developed more than 4,000 objects in his 30 years at Dansk DesignsThe table provided display space for dozens and dozens of Quistgaard-designed objects, including plates, cutlery, candleholders, glasses, cooking pots, jugs and more.
Behind the table, rows of shelves accommodated a series of sculptural peppermills.Crafting the Present reveals manufacturing techniques behind mid-century furniture classics
As the designs for which Quistgaard is most likely to be remembered, these turned-wood peppermills recall the shapes of familiar objects, from chess pieces to pieces of fruit.
“The peppermill designs clearly show the love of sculpture that flows through Quistgaard’s work,” said Masiello.
The exhibition was on show for 3 Days of Design”His daughter, Henriette Quistgaard, said he hoped the peppermills on their own could be the beginnings of great dinner conversations,” he stated.
The exhibition also featured larger objects, including a handful of furniture designs. Masiello pointed to the Stokke Armchair (1965) and the Sculptors Chair (2004) as being particularly noteworthy.
The Sculptors Chair was among the furniture works on display”I find his creative range so inspiring,” Masiello said. “Working with different materials and object types, he was always pushing his design practice to new frontiers.”
“He is more well known for the kitchen objects, but he was always exploring other designs too, including chairs, stools and tables,” he continued.
Many of the objects were sourced from Quistgaard’s former homeThe show was curated in collaboration with Stig Guldberg, author of the monograph Jens Quistgaard: The Sculpting Designer, which was published by Phaidon in 2023.
Many of the exhibits were sourced from the home where the designer spent his final years, a farmhouse on the outskirts of Copenhagen where Henriette Quistgaard still lives today.
Original sketches featured alongside the objects”My father was a visionary of design, bridging the old world of craftsmanship into the new world of manufacturing,” Henriette said.
“It is thrilling to see the full body of his life’s work being shown.”
Jens Quistgaard Around the Table was on show from 12 to 14 June as part of 3 Days of Design. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
The photography is by Sofie Hvitved.Read more: More
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Crafting the Present reveals manufacturing techniques behind mid-century furniture classics
The 3 Days of Design exhibition from Danish furniture brand Fredericia reveals how iconic designs by Hans J Wegner and Børge Mogensen have been subtly adapted in line with today’s standards.
On show at the Fredericia headquarters in Copenhagen, Crafting the Present showcases the craft processes, tools and makers behind the brand’s furniture.
Crafting the Present is on show for 3 Days of DesignCurated by designer Maria Bruun, the exhibition shows how designs including Wegner’s Ox Chair and Mogensen’s Spanish Chair have been carefully reworked in line with modern manufacturing technologies and environmental standards.
Rasmus Graversen, CEO of Fredericia, believes it is important for design classics to move with the times.
The exhibition reveals the processes behind designs including Hans J Wegner’s Ox Chair”We sometimes need to challenge the way we do things; something that was good 50 years ago isn’t necessarily good now,” he explained during a tour of the show.“If you don’t have a culture of craft in your company, you might think the way that something was done in the past is the only right way.”
Leather upholstery techniques are showcased in the exhibitionGraversen, who is also the grandson of brand founder Andreas Graversen, wanted the exhibition to highlight how this culture of craft is at the heart of Fredericia’s approach.
The company has a specialist upholstery workshop in Svendborg, south Denmark, a facility that was established by Erik Jørgensen in 1954 and acquired by Fredericia in 2020.
The show includes live demonstrations from makersThe exhibition includes live demonstrations from both the workshop production team and from artisans at leather manufacturer Tärnsjö Garveri.
Crafting the Present also showcases the tools used in these production processes, alongside models that reveal how the furniture pieces are assembled.
“We wanted to showcase the talented craftsmen and women whose hands touch every piece of furniture,” Bruun said.
“Here, craft is not a marketing gimmick. It is not a layer added onto the furniture afterwards. It is the heritage of this company and has an influence on everything.”
Tools are presented alongside models”All of the tools you see are used for real,” added Graversen. “Nothing was picked just because it’s pretty.”
“These are all used in the actual production; it’s an extraordinary experience to see what happens.”
Rasmus Graversen, CEO of Fredericia, wanted to celebrate the brand’s culture of craftTextile curtains suspended from the ceiling provide a scenography that divides the space into different sections.
Metal trolleys create multi-level displays, while larger models are raised up on trestles.
The Maria Bruun-designed Pioneer stool provides seatingThe Pioneer, a design developed by Bruun for Fredericia in 2023, is also featured.
Dotted through, the stool provides seating so that visitors can spend time watching the artisans at work.
Crafting the Present is on show for of 3 Days of Design, which takes place in Copenhagen from 12 to 14 June. For more events, exhibitions and talks in architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide.Read more: More
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The Hoxton Vienna offers “contemporary take on the Wiener Werstätte arts and craft movement”
AIME Studio’s interiors for the latest outpost of The Hoxton hotels, in a renovated marble-clad 1950s office building in Vienna, celebrate arts and crafts and post-war modernism.
Creative studio AIME Studio has converted the former administration building of the Chamber of Commerce in Vienna, which was originally designed by architect Carl Appel, into The Hoxton Vienna.
The building now features 196 rooms, a rooftop bar and swimming pool, a restaurant, cocktail bar, a private apartment and an auditorium for events and programming.
The lobby of the hotel, which was previously an office building, features original travertine wallsBy focussing on mid-century Austrian design, the hotel aims to show guests a less classical side of what is often considered a traditional European city.
Appel was known for shaping the “Second Ringstrasse” style of the post-war reconstruction period, which the studio referenced in its design.“Our aim was to create a design that respected the building’s history and to preserve the architectural style of the 1950s,” AIME Studios’ Aaron Gibson told Dezeen.
The Hoxton Vienna is filled with mid-century design details”We visited buildings in Vienna designed by Carl Appel and renowned Austrian architects of the early 20th-century – like Adolph Loos and Otto Wagner – which inspired the interiors for The Hoxton Vienna,” Gibson added.
The double-height lobby of The Hoxton Vienna preserves key features and details from Appel’s original 1950s design.
The bedroom’s feature geometric patterned fabrics and soft furnishingsThe mid-century finishes of stones and metals in the original office building set a neutral and semi-industrial context for the renovation.
“We deliberately used the key features and details from Carl Appel’s original design for the architecture and the interior as a basis for our decision-making throughout the ground floor,” the studio said.
The hotel has a ground-floor restaurant that continues the design themesAIME Studios also worked with The Federal Monuments Authority Austria, which enforces the Monument Protection Act in order to explore, protect and maintain Austria’s cultural heritage.
Together they selected furniture items for the hotel which reflect the 1950s, including light fittings, armchairs, sofas, and even the fabrics and textiles used in the space.
Just off the main lobby there is a small cafe bar”We inherited amazing existing features like the large format terrazzo flooring, travertine walls and corrugated aluminium columns, which are all great examples of 1950s architecture,” AIME told Dezeen.
The interior scheme complements the existing restrained colour palette of the natural stones’ soft hues of green-grey, beige and blue tones.
The rooftop bar and pool area adopts a more contemporary designThe studio also took inspiration from the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese workshops), one of the longest-lived design movements of the 20th century and a key organisation for the development of modernism.
Centred in the Austrian capital, it bridged traditional methods of manufacture and avant-garde aesthetics.
In the bedrooms, geographic patterned curtains are influenced by iconic Werkstätte fabrics and ruched headboards are inspired by Loos’ style.
The auditorium is The Hoxton’s largest events space to date”We selected Viennese fabrics with restrained colours and quiet and small-scale patterns, demonstrating a contemporary take on the Wiener Werstätte arts and craft movement,” Gibson explained.
Besides the usual hotel program of rooms and restaurants, The Hoxton Vienna features a large auditorium designed in a 1950s palette of pale yellow and blue with mid-century wood panelling, furniture and fittings.The Hoxton hotel opens in Chicago’s old meatpacking area
The auditorium will host events like stand-up comedy, gigs and conferences, as part of the wider cultural programming of The Hoxton Vienna.
The hotel also has a private “apartment,” which is an open-plan series of rooms across different levels, including kitchen, dining, sitting and meeting spaces.
There is a speakeasy-style bar in the basementThe interiors of the apartment distil the essence of AIME Studios’ interior design at The Hoxton, with Wiener Werstätte patterns and colours, mid-century modernist furniture and light fittings, and artwork referencing the period.
Other hotels from The Hoxton that have recently featured on Dezeen include their first opening in Germany with The Hoxton Charlottenburg in Berlin and the Ricardo Bofill-inspired The Hoxton Poblenou in Barcelona.
Photography is by Julius Hirtzberger.Read more: More
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Oskar Kohnen fills “well-curated” London office with mid-century modern furniture
London studio Oskar Kohnen has outfitted a Mayfair office with mid-century modern furniture and contemporary pieces, which “are so well curated that no one would ever dare to throw them away”.
Spread across three floors, the office is housed within a rectilinear building in London’s Mayfair neighbourhood with a gridded facade.
Oskar Kohnen designed the office in London’s Mayfair area”It has a townhouse feeling,” studio founder Oskar Kohnen told Dezeen of the office, which he designed for developer Crosstree Real Estate.
At its ground level, Kohnen clad the entrance hall with dark-stained wooden panels and added sconce lights to subtly illuminate the space.
A cream Djinn sofa was placed in the entrance hallAn amorphous Djinn sofa, created by industrial designer Olivier Mourge in 1965, was placed in one corner.“We worked a lot with vintage furniture, and as for the new pieces we sourced, we hope they are so well curated that no one would ever dare to throw them away,” said Kohnen.
The first floor features a living room-style space”Warm and inviting” interiors characterise a living room-style space on the first floor, which was created in direct contrast to the industrial appearance of the exterior.
An L-shaped velvet and stainless-steel sofa finished in a burnt orange hue was positioned next to white-stained brise soleil screens and a bright resin coffee table.
Terrazzo accents were chosen for the kitchen”The social spaces have an earthy and calm colour palette – yet they are lush and dramatic,” explained Kohnen.
A pair of low-slung 1955 Lina armchairs by architect Gianfranco Frattini also features in this space, while floor-to-ceiling glazing opens onto a residential-style terrace punctuated by potted plants.
Oskar Kohnen added a bright gridded ceiling to one of the meeting roomsSimilar tones and textures were used to dress the rest of the rooms on this level.
These spaces include a kitchen with contemporary terrazzo worktops and a meeting room with a red gridded ceiling that was set against cream-coloured panels and modernist black chairs.Eight renovated mid-century homes that marry period and contemporary details
The second floor holds the main office, complete with rows of timber desks and an additional meeting room-library space characterised by the same reddish hues as the low-lit entrance hall.
“The idea was to create an office space that had soul to it and would offer a more personal take on a work environment, rather than the usual corporate spaces we are so familiar with in London,” Kohen concluded.
The second floor holds the main officeFounded in 2011, Kohnen’s eponymous studio has completed a range of interior projects, including a mint-green eyewear store in Berlin and a pink-tinged paint shop in southwest London.
The photography is by Salva Lopez.Read more: More
