Florence Knoll

Florence Knoll Bassett (born May 24, 1917) is an American architect and furniture designer who studied under Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen. She was born Florence Schust in Saginaw, Michigan, and is known in familiar circles as "Shu". She graduated from the Kingswood School before studying at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. (Both institutions are located on the same campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.) Knoll also received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the Armour Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1941 and briefly worked with leaders of the Bauhaus movement, including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and the American modernist, Wallace K. Harrison.

Florence Marguerite Schust was born in Saginaw, Michigan, to Frederick E. Schust and Mina Haist Schust. Frederick was born about 1882 in either Switzerland or Germany, was a native German speaker, and the 1920 United States Federal Census describes him as the superintendent of a commercial bakery. Mina was born about 1887 in Michigan, although her parents had been born in Canada. Frederick died relatively young, some time before the 1930 United States Federal Census.

From 1932-34 Florence Knoll attended Kingswood School in Cranbrook, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1934-1935, where she studied under Eliel Saarinen, father of Eero Saarinen. In 1935, she studied town planning at the School of Architecture at Columbia University. From 1936-1937, she explored furniture-making with Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames. Then, in 1928-1939, she was at the Architectural Association in London, and was influenced by Le Corbusier’s International style, but she left as World War II was spreading. In 1940, Florence Knoll moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and worked for Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, and was influenced by the Bauhaus school and Marcel Breuer's steel-tubed modern furniture. This led to the Illinois Institute of Technology (Armour Institute) in Chicago, where she studied under Mies van der Rohe.

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