Jonathan Olivares is working wonders at Knoll, as the brand’s Salone pavilion attests

When the industrial designer Jonathan Olivares was appointed senior vice president of design at US furniture company Knoll in June 2022, it felt like the turning of a tide. As an originator of American design since its founding in 1938 by Hans and Florence Knoll, with icons such as Marcel Breuer’s ‘Wassily’ chair (1925) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s ‘Barcelona’ chair (1929) both under trademarks in its control, the once-pioneering company had endured several years of uncertainty, including being acquired by Herman Miller for an epic $1.8bn in 2021, and keeping a relatively low profile before that.  

Jonathan Olivares takes on the future of Knoll designs

The shake-up (and wake-up) that Knoll supporters have been waiting for appears to have arrived with Olivares’ appointment. As a custodian of Knoll’s design legacy, Olivares has been tasked with overseeing future Knoll designs, which he plans to do with a community of international designers. And it all comes to fruition for the first time this month at Salone del Mobile 2023. With a pavilion designed by Belgian architecture firm Office KGDVS, a new outdoor collection by Piero Lissoni, a reissue of Eero Saarinen’s iconic round table in a new size, and a host of other renewals of classic products, including the 1966 Collection by Richard Schultz, Knoll’s presence in Milan is set to be about moving forward as much as it is about looking back. 

Olivares is a veteran designer who has mostly flown under the radar, despite achieving much success. A graduate of Pratt Institute, his recent undertakings prior to joining Knoll include designing an aluminium-heavy flagship showroom for Kvadrat in New York (his ‘Square’ chair collection for Moroso also appears in the space), collaborating with architects Johnston Marklee on furniture for the Dropbox HQ in San Francisco, and realising showrooms for Vitra, together with several exhibitions, all designed in collaboration with the London-based architect Pernilla Ohrstedt. A monograph, Selected Works, was published in 2018, and his designs have also found their way into the permanent collections of institutions such as the Vitra Design Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Ahead of his hiring, Olivares’ relationship with Knoll already ran deep. One of his earliest projects after starting his design practice in 2006 was a survey of the US furniture industry that he wrote for Domus. This put him in direct orbit with Knoll, which, shortly after, commissioned him to develop a research project on the history of the office chair. The result, A Taxonomy of Office Chairs, was published in 2011. In 2012, Knoll introduced the ‘Olivares Aluminum’ chair – a sculptural, die-cast aluminium chair, versatile enough for both indoor and outdoor use. 

‘Knoll has always forged its own path by looking outside of furniture, to architecture and interiors,’ says Olivares. ‘Much of Knoll’s furniture is also unfinished, in the sense that a client plays an active role in completing the pieces through the selection of discerning colours, finishes and materials. These are qualities we aim to build on.’ What excited him most about the role, he says, was ‘the prospect of working with peers to build a contemporary vision of how Knoll interiors are composed and furnished and, in turn, what cultural values are enabled and expressed. At its best, Knoll acted as a platform that captured and catalysed the zeitgeist in architecture and design, and I see this role as a chance to continue that legacy.’

The Knoll Pavilion at Salone del Mobile 2023

The Knoll Pavilion at Salone del Mobile 2023 divulges how Olivares plans to bring the brand into the modern age. Designed by Kersten Geers and David Van Severen of Office KGDVS, the dynamic aluminium and glass structure showcases Knoll’s new launches alongside artworks by Jonathan Muecke, inspired by some of the Harry Bertoia artworks that were commissioned by Florence Knoll for her first showrooms. ‘Kersten and David carry a spirit that is close to many of Knoll’s values, but in a contemporary way that is not stuck in the rear-view mirror and carries the architectural spirit of Knoll forwards.

‘My brief to them started with the Eliel Saarinen quote that is so central to Knoll’s DNA: “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan,”‘ Olivares shares. ‘In that spirit, I asked them to design a pavilion that could provide a domestic and residential scale inside the massive and often alienating trade fair environment. I also asked them to use materials that were recycled and completely recyclable. The space is made of 100 per cent recyclable aluminium extrusions, and recycled concrete terrazzo tiles, which can also be further recycled.’

Even the colours used in the pavilion have been equally considered; they’ve been selected in collaboration with Salem van der Swaagh, an American designer who worked for Hella Jongerius in Berlin for a decade. Van der Swaagh, who had already worked independently with Knoll Textiles, is also currently editing the colours and materials of the Knoll portfolio globally.  

‘Collaborators like these keep Knoll alive, and connect it to our time. Their work is invaluable to the brand,’ explains Olivares. ‘In the case of the Knoll Pavilion, Kersten and David provide an architecture that recalls the rigour of Mies van der Rohe and his disciple Craig Ellwood, but with an embrace of raw materials, an aesthetic hedonism and nonchalance that is their own. Jonathan Muecke’s artworks occupy a scale similar to Harry Bertoia’s sculptures, yet play with positive and negative space in a way that reshapes your impression of the furniture pieces around them.’ 

Olivares shows an inherent understanding of Knoll’s relevance and how it can evolve. ‘Knoll has always had a strong connection to the interior. In the early years, everything was developed in response to the next largest thing: a paper tray was done with consideration of the desk, the desk in response to the office plan, and the office plan in relation to the building plan,’ he says. ‘There was also a bond with architectural tendencies: from Mies to Venturi to Gehry, the company put forth furniture that expressed the latest thinking from leading architects. These are aspects I aim to further.’ 

He adds, ‘Prior to the acquisition, Knoll needed to be a lot of things to a lot of audiences. I am most excited about bringing a new focus to Knoll that is tied to its heritage and strengths, yet is entirely contemporary.’   

The Knoll Pavilion will be on show from 18-23 April at Fiera Milano Rho, Hall 4, Stand D11/E12

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