Know Your Sofas: The Florence Knoll Sofa

For this installation of Know Your Sofas, I introduce you to one Florence Knoll (1917 – 2019), a pioneering American architect, interior designer, and furniture designer who transformed the look and function of the modern workplace as well as residences around the world. A protégée of Bauhaus pioneers and design legends Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen, she co-founded Knoll Associates with her husband Hans. Her approach integrated architecture, interiors, textiles, and furniture into cohesive, functional spaces. And she created one of the most iconic, simple--and most knocked off--pieces of furniture that appeared in nearly every Mid-Century home or office: the Florence Knoll sofa.

Knoll herself referred to her furniture as the “meat and potatoes” of design, by which she meant that her work was foundational, not flashy, designing furniture only when she “needed the piece of furniture for a job and it wasn’t there.” They were, “The fill-in pieces that no one else wants to do.” Yet this very philosophy is what made the sofa revolutionary. With its clean lines, tufted cushions, and sleek metal frame, the sofa brought a sense of order and structure to interior spaces that had often been cluttered and overly decorative. Here is an early sketch of what was to become her signature piece.

Designed in 1954 with an architect’s eye, the Florence Knoll Sofa is all about balance, proportion, and purpose. It provided a comfortable place to sit without disrupting the visual harmony of a room. Its geometric form was inspired by modernist principles, while its materials--often wool upholstery and chromed steel legs--spoke to both durability and modern sophistication. Its adaptability is one reason the Florence Knoll Sofa has endured. Equally at home in a corporate boardroom or a minimalist living room, it became a staple of modern interiors from the 1950s onward and helped define what modern furniture could be. It broke away from ornamentation and embraced clarity. It blurred the line between residential and commercial spaces, helping to usher in the idea of the “open plan” office. And perhaps most importantly, it showed that interior design deserved the same rigor and thoughtfulness as architecture--she was trained by Mies van der Rohe after all!

Image from the Knoll Archive

Florence Knoll seating designs installed in the office of Cowles Publications.
Image from the Knoll Archive

Florence Knoll sofa in a residential setting.
Image from the Knoll Archive

The Knoll sofa continues to be made by Knoll and is available from DWR. It looks marvelous in a sleek, Mid Century setting or in a Haussmannian apartment in Paris with ornate plasterwork!

Happy designing!

Know Your Sofas: The Soriana Sofa

In November of 1969, Cesare Cassina, the founder of the Italian furniture brand Cassina contacted the husband and wife team of architects and designers Tobia and Afra Scarpa with an urgent request. He asked if they could design a new type of sofa, something unique that had not been seen before, to enter into competition at an important trade show in Germany in January. With only a little over a month, they came up with the remarkable Soriana sofa (which also comes with coordinating chairs!).

Taking advantage of new techniques in forming expanding polyurethane foam, they envisioned a sofa with no internal structure. Instead, it took its form from tines of discreet metal bracing curving up from the base. This allowed the upholstery to wrap around the shape of the sofa. Tobia recounted, "At the beginning, the workers did not understand that the leather covering was not supposed to be taut . . . but to appear like a soft, creased fabric curled around this soft mass and held together by a sort of giant metal spring." Well, the look of the Soriana was beguiling enough for it to win the prestigious Compasso d’Oro award at the trade show!

The silhouette of this sofa is still beguiling designers and homeowners alike even today. Designer Rodman Primack put a Soriana suite in his Mexico City home he shares with his husband Rudy Weissenberg.

Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

Kelly Wearstler put one (with chairs!) in her Malibu home...

And Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent have one in their Los Angeles residence.

Photo: Douglas Friedman

The sofa (and chairs!) are still in production and can be purchased from Cassina.

Happy designing!

Know Your Sofas: The Settee

For this Know Your Sofas, I want to focus on something a bit more traditional and classic since the last many installations have covered very modern pieces from the late 20th century. But it is in a way a very simple post...honoring The Settee.

But what is the difference between a sofa and a settee? Or a settee and a bench for that matter? There have been all kinds of pieces of furniture which function as a bench or settee, going back to the Greeks and Romans. But whereas the citizens of antiquity liked to lounge back on such pieces, it wasn't until the Medieval/Gothic period when a bench on which one would sit upright would be seen.

The image below shows an interior of a house in the 15th and 16th century with a bench and cushions on the left. Even though the illustration comes a few hundred years after the fact, such pieces of furniture were still in existence and could easily be traced to their Medieval origins.

From “Le costume historique” by Auguste Racinet

Then looking back at the Renaissance, we see a piece of furniture come into existence called a cassapanca in Italian, which translates into "chest bench." Often intricately carved, these pieces had a seat on a hinge that hid storage!

Florentine cassapanca at The Met, New York City

Over the next many decades of furniture styles, we see variations of benches, lounges, and daybed sofas. But when we get to the Queen Anne style, beginning in the 1720s and 1730s, we see furniture makers hit upon the idea of joining three or four seats together to make what would be considered a settee with a continuous upholstered seat.

Into the Regence and Louis XV periods, we see settees look more like what we think of when we hear the word settee: a delicate, elegant piece of furniture that seats up to three featuring a padded back and seat, open arms, exposed legs, and an ornately decorated frame. Although during Louis XV, the piece was called by the French word for "sofa": a canapé.

But for me, it is the reign of Louis XVI that shows the world what a classic settee looks like, with lovely Neo-Classical legs and perfect proportions. Et voilà , the settee was born!

Happy designing!

Know Your Sofas: The Tuxedo Sofa

Originating in the Art Deco1920s and named for Tuxedo Park, a village in New York (where the likes of William Waldorf Astor, J.P. Morgan, and Dorothy Draper, previously here, partied!), the Tuxedo sofa is sharp and tailored; not only is the sofa named for the town but also the formal menswear suiting got its name here as well! A hallmark of the sofa is that the arms are the same height as the back. A true Tuxedo is tufted, as shown below. But what is the difference between a Tuxedo sofa and a Chesterfield sofa, previously covered here in Know Your Sofas? The Tuxedo is sleeker, with track arms whereas the Chesterfield is plumply overstuffed with rolled arms. Overall, the Tuxedo feels more delicate and the Chesterfield feels burly.

The pair of sofas below, the Powell and the Laguna models from Burton James, offer a classic Tuxedo silhouette. The Powell is presented with a bench seat that feels a little mid-century, but the Laguna is shown with two cushions, small nickel nailheads, and acrylic legs lending it a more Deco air.

Powell Tuxedo sofa from Burton James

Laguna Tuxedo sofa from Burton James

Bernhardt's Beckett sofa features traditional diamond tufting on the back and arms.

Beckett Tuxedo sofa by Bernhardt

Beckett Tuxedo sofa by Bernhardt

The extra width of the three-cushion Matteo sofa from Century is welcoming...they also make a four-cushion for additional seating!

Matteo Tuxedo sofa from Century

Matteo Tuxedo sofa from Century

Lexington's Camille sofa has a double row of nailheads...

Camille Tuxedo sofa by Lexington

Camille Tuxedo sofa by Lexington

...while the Byatt from Theodore Alexander has a row of nailheads inside the seating area which defines the tufting, making the design even more crisp and tailored.

Byatt Tuxedo sofa from Theodore Alexander

Happy designing!

Know Your Sofas: The Mah Jong Sofa

Welcome to another installation of Know Your Sofas, and here is a sofa you should definitely know!

Created in 1971 by artist and designer Hans Hopfer (1931 - 2009) for Italian home furnishings brand Roche Bobois, the original Mah Jong sofa was called simply the Lounge Sofa (or Forever Sofa). The concept was for a low-slung modular seating system that can be combined in many different ways depending on what the owner wants. This suited the new way of seating that people were discovering in the 1960s and 1970s when the concept of a stiff sofa or settee was becoming obsolete. People more and more were lounging in their homes while watching television, relaxing, gathering, playing...simply living more casually than in times past. You can see that Hopfer's drawing below shows a sort of cloud-like, pillow silhouette.

The final product took the form of three individual elements--a flat square, a back, and a corner section--that can be stacked, combined, laid out, and rotated to form a myriad of configurations. While certainly low-slung, it looks in the first photo below like the Lounge Sofa started out placed on some thicker bases to bring them up from the floor a bit more...

...but the sofa is now known as the Mah Jong Sofa, named for the resemblance of each section to Mah Jong tiles. The concept of stacking, joining, and rearranging is even stronger now. It is still available through Roche Bobois and since 1990, it has been their best-selling sofa! It can be purchased to sit either directly on the floor or to be laid out on low platforms with inset legs that give the whole structure a sense of floating off the ground. The mattress-style cushions are entirely hand-stitched in an Italian atelier.

The Mah Jong sofa can now be ordered in fabrics designed by haute couture houses! Missoni Home created versions based on their iconic flame-stitch and other signature patterns from the house.

Legendary designer Jean Paul Gaultier lends his own patterns: French white and navy maritime stripes and the intricate curlicues of world currency...

...while Kenzo Takada took inspiration from the beauty of Japanese kimono fabrics for his collection.

You can find out more about this classic sofa at the Roche Bobois Mah Jong site!

Happy designing!