Warren Platner 1966
Introduced in 1966, the Platner Collection of sculpted wire furniture captured the “decorative, gentle, graceful” qualities that were beginning to infiltrate the modern vocabulary. The Collection’s unique, harmonious forms are created by welding hundreds of curved vertical steel rods to circular frames, finished in bright nickel, 18k gold or bronze metallic paint.
With his experience in the firm of Eero Saarinen and Associates, it is not surprising that the mantel for the second generation of pedestal and wire furniture fell on the creative shoulders of Warren Platner. Reflecting a dramatic shift in cultural values, modernism became more expressive in the 1960s. Platner felt there was an opportunity to merge the competing aesthetics of the time.
“I began to think about what I thought furniture, specifically a chair, really might be, starting with the philosophy that it isn’t going to be aggressively technological, or aggressively handicraft…I, as a designer, felt there was room for the kind of decorative, gentle, graceful kind of design that appeared in period style like Louis XV, but it could have a more rational base instead of being applied decoration…I thought why separate support from the object. Just make it all one thing. Starts at the floor and comes up and envelops me, supports me…What I wanted to achieve was a chair that, number one, was complementary to the person sitting in it, or to the person in the space between the wall and the chair — what the chair did for the person in respect to the scale of the person and the space.”
Warren Platner made notable architectural contributions throughout his career, but it was his furniture collection for Knoll that earned Platner worldwide renown.
Originally introduced by Knoll in 1966, the Platner Collection is an icon of modern furniture. Platner personally formulated the production techniques for the complicated designs with each chair requiring over a thousand welds and more than one hundred cylindrical steel rods.
Nickel and Gold finishes are plated, Metallic Bronze is a painted finish.
9041 | Stephen Hawking Centre at Perimeter Institute
13537 | Pilot by Knoll
7686 | Jehs+Laub Lounge Chair, Platner Coffee Table
12759 | Knoll Houston Showroom
6294 | Florence Knoll Sofa and Womb Chair
12261 | Barber Osgerby Asymmetric Sofa and Pilot by Knoll Chair
12837 | Living Room with Pfister Sofa, Platner Coffee Table & Pollock Arm Chair
13431 | Platner Collection
13429 | Pollock Arm Chair
10399 | Platner Lounge Chair and Coffee Table
10405 | Platner :Lounge Chair and Coffee Table
5389 | Florence Knoll Lounge Collection, Platner Coffee T
6878 | Wassily Chair, Pfister Settee, Platner Table