Knoll International Womb

Developed by Eero Saarinen in 1948, the two-seater sofa was not one of the designer's famous three pieces — the Model 70 Womb Chair, Model 71 Executive Arm Chair and Model 72 Executive Armless Chair. Instead, it was designed in anticipation of Saarinen's first major architectural project: the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan — a complex of twenty-five buildings requiring furniture for more than 5,000 people. In 2012, Knoll decided to revisit the design. Design Director Benjamin Pardo remembers that time as a demanding experience. "We faced the same challenges as in the late 1940s," says Pardo. As with many of Saarinen's furniture designs, the Womb Settee required production processes and materials that were still in their infancy. The flexibility of the plastic shell, an advantage in the Models 70 and 72 and conceived for intensive use in a corporate interior, proved problematic in the Model 73. Ultimately, Pardo and his team prevailed, and the piece was reintroduced in 2015. Saarinen wrote of the unwieldy, oversized models the Womb Settee was intended to replace: "These dreadnoughts [have] disappeared from modern interiors, partly because they were designed for an era that wanted to impress through sheer mass." Even if such heavyweight forms may have gone out of fashion, Saarinen regarded their essential function as timeless: "The need for such chairs has not passed. Today, more than ever, we need moments of relaxation."