Latest news with #StandardIssue
Hypebeast
2 days ago
- Business
- Hypebeast
MillerKnoll Just Unveiled Its Sprawling Design Archive — Here's How to Visit
Multi-brand design purveyorMillerKnollhas officially unveiled the opening of the MillerKnoll Archives, offering a one-of-a-kind look at over one million objects manufactured byHerman Miller,Knoll, and other names. Located at its Michigan Design Yard headquarters in Detroit, the 12,000 sqft space was brought to life with the help of NYC design consultancy Standard Issue. The space contains three key areas that will open to public visitors on select dates in July, August, and October. First, a curated exhibition titledManufacturing Moderndelves into the intersecting Modernist legacies of Knoll and Herman Miller in the 20th century with spotlights on designers who shaped the brands, including Florence Knoll,George Nelson,Eero Saarinen,CharlesandRay Eames, Harry Bertoia,Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, andMarcel Breuer. Next, the Open Storage room gives visitors a closer look at more than 300 pieces tracing the evolution of modern furniture design from the 1920s to the present. On the walls, George Nelson-designed advertisements, photography by the Eameses, and more posters are fixed to mounted art racks. On the shelves with contemporary MillerKnoll brands likeHAY,Geiger, andNaughtOne, are special and rare pieces, including a prototype of the Knoll Womb® Chair that once belonged Eero Saarinen's mother, Gilbert Rohde's Herman Miller pieces first showcased at the 1933 World's Fair. Additionally, visitors will be able to see early office furniture designs by Florence Knoll, and an Isamu Noguchi lamp and rocking stool made for Knoll. Finally, the Reading Room gives visitors access to a plethora of ephemera and design materials. Documents from the development of Nelson's first Herman Miller collection and technical designs of the Eames Lounge Chair are among the most important of the various gems in the library. See the gallery above for a look inside the new MillerKnoll Archive. Additional information on tour tickets will be available at theCranbrook Art Museumwebsite.
Fast Company
4 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
A first look inside MillerKnoll's new million object archive
The magic of an archive often has to do with discovery—of an idea that never made it out of a sketchbook, the behind-the-scenes lore only a handful of confidantes are privy to, and the mundane items that time transforms into holy grails. Now, the field of modern design has a new archive to salivate over, courtesy of MillerKnoll. Composed of over one million objects and held in a 12,000-square-foot facility at MillerKnoll's headquarters in Western Michigan, the archive includes visible storage; a reading room for researchers; and an exhibition space. There, visitors can spy everything from the streamlined objects Gilbert Rohde designed for the 1933 World's Fair to prototypes of the Eames Action Office and pattern-drenched postmodernist chairs by Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. It's a who's-who list of modern design history, all under one roof. But the archive—designed in collaboration with the New York-based consultancy Standard Issue —is more than a repository for historic artifacts; it's something that can help develop new ideas and tell untold stories. 'The great excitement for me is not one particular item, not one particular narrative; but the endless opportunity that it presents to make more connections,' says Ben Watson, the chief creative and product officer at MillerKnoll. The Story of Modern Design History has been an important part of the individual brands that comprise MillerKnoll, which includes Herman Miller, Knoll, Design Within Reach, Hay, and Muuto, among others. In silos, they told a company-specific story; all together the collection represents the myriad narratives that shaped how modern furniture became a business, from ambitious ideas to the nuts and bolts of how objects actually get made. The extended deadline for Fast Company's Brands That Matter Awards is this Friday, June 6, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
