Knoll International Platner

Given his experience at Eero Saarinen and Associates, it is no surprise that responsibility for designing the second generation of pedestal and wire furniture fell on the creative shoulders of Warren Platner. The 1960s saw a dramatic shift in cultural values, and modernism was becoming increasingly expressive. Platner saw this as an opportunity to unite the competing aesthetics of the era. "I began to think about what furniture, especially a chair, could really be in my view. I started from the philosophy that it should be neither aggressively technological nor aggressively handcrafted... As a designer, I felt there was room for a decorative, gentle and graceful kind of design that appeared in styles such as Louis XV. But it could have a more rational basis instead of being applied decoration... Why separate support from the object? Simply make it one whole. It starts at the floor, rises up and envelops me, supports me... What I wanted to achieve was a chair that, firstly, fits the person sitting in it, or the person in the space between the wall and the chair — what the chair does for the person in relation to the person's size and the space."