Iconic Knoll Graphic Installed at Knoll Product Development Facility

August 26, 2014

An iconic Knoll graphic designed by Lella and Massimo Vignelli for the 1972 Knoll au Louvre exhibition at the Pavillion de Marsan at the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, was installed at the Knoll East Greenville product development facility this summer. The installation was arranged by Marie Unger of the Knoll product development team.

The exhibition, a celebration and retrospective of the company’s first 25 years, was a combined effort of the Louvre staff, Yves Vidal of Knoll in Paris, and Lella and Massimo Vignelli in New York. The retrospective showcased Knoll furniture in cubes, some Plexiglas, some polished steel with white interiors, all with industrial sized casters that could be moved and placed in different locations and alignments

“The concept of using plastic cubes to house the furniture in the huge space was indeed brilliant and was a great success,” Florence Knoll wrote of the exhibition’s design.

Knoll utilized a 45-foot high wing of the museum. In the entry, an over-sized three-dimensional Knoll logo towered over the 50,000 visitors who attended. Commenting on the exhibition, Massimo Vignelli said, “I think it was a kind of consecration of Knoll as the number one in the field.”

The logo treatment was also featured on the exhibit catalog. In the four-panel poster, the hallmarks of Vignelli graphic design are prominent: the discipline of the grid, visual power in the use of scale and color and intellectual elegance.