Original Warren Platner set of 7 pieces, Knoll International

Original eye-catching set of six chairs and one round table by Warren Platner for Knoll international. This rare steel and glass Platner set features an exceptionally striking core design that boasts a sculptural base with original orange-red upholstery.

Size: table diameter’s: 136cm – H 70cm / Chairs back H 74cm – W 68cm

Warren Platner for Knoll international, late 1960.

Lit: Originally introduced by Knoll in 1966, the Platner Collection represents the designer’s attempt to infuse modernism with “the kind of decorative, gentle, graceful kind of design that appeared in period style like Louis XV.”

Lit: Architect and interior designer Warren Platner was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1919. He studied at Cornell University and graduated as an architect in 1941. Soon after, he began working with such legendary architects as Raymond Loewy and I.M. Pei from 1945 to 1950, and then with Eero Saarinen from 1960 to 1965. During this time, he was involved in the design of many historic projects such as the Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. and the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center. Warren Platner joins Kevin Roche’s firm as Director of Interior Design. Convinced that the essence and personality of a building comes from within, he became more involved in industrial and interior design.

In the 1960s, as the modernist movement became more expressive, Warren Platner focused on a softer aesthetic by creating graceful structures. In 1966, he collaborated with Knoll on the Platner Collection, a series of modern chairs, ottomans and tables that rest on an intricately sculpted base of cylindrical steel rods in a moiré pattern. Requiring over 1000 welds for each piece, the design combines architecture and industrial design. Platner helped to devise the techniques and method needed to manufacture the collection.Although Warren Platner has produced other designs, the Platner Collection remains his most famous creation.

In 1967, Warren Platner decided to found his own company, Platner Associates. He went beyond architecture and experimented with furniture, lighting, textile and interior design. By the late 1960s, he exhibited worldwide and was involved in numerous interior design and architectural projects, including the design of the Fort Foundation headquarters (1967) in New York, the Georg Jensen Design Center (1968) in New York, the interiors of the American Restaurant in Kansas (1974), the interiors of the Water Tower Place (1976) in Chicago, as well as the Windows on the World, the restaurant in the World Trade Center (1976, New York).

He received the Rome Prize in 1955 for his architecture and was inducted into the Hall of Fame magazine in 1985. Warren Platner died in 2006 at the age of 86.