MillerKnoll Just Unveiled Its Sprawling Design Archive — Here's How to Visit
The 12,000 sqft space at its Michigan headquarters is the permanent home for over one million objects from Herman Miller and Knoll’s archival collections.
Summary
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- MillerKnoll will open its Detroit-based MillerKnoll Archive to the public starting this Summer, offering visits to the sprawling facility that contains more than one million objects from the company’s century-spanning collection.
- On select dates in July, August, and October, visitors will get a chance to book tours with support from the Cranbrook Art Museum.
Multi-brand design purveyor MillerKnoll has officially unveiled the opening of the MillerKnoll Archives, offering a one-of-a-kind look at over one million objects manufactured by Herman Miller, Knoll, and other names.
Located at its Michigan Design Yard headquarters in Detroit, the 12,000 sqft space was brought to life with the help of NYC design consultancy Standard Issue. The space contains three key areas that will open to public visitors on select dates in July, August, and October.
First, a curated exhibition titled Manufacturing Modern delves into the intersecting Modernist legacies of Knoll and Herman Miller in the 20th century with spotlights on designers who shaped the brands, including Florence Knoll, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer.
Next, the Open Storage room gives visitors a closer look at more than 300 pieces tracing the evolution of modern furniture design from the 1920s to the present. On the walls, George Nelson-designed advertisements, photography by the Eameses, and more posters are fixed to mounted art racks. On the shelves with contemporary MillerKnoll brands like HAY, Geiger, and NaughtOne, are special and rare pieces, including a prototype of the Knoll Womb® Chair that once belonged Eero Saarinen’s mother, Gilbert Rohde’s Herman Miller pieces first showcased at the 1933 World’s Fair. Additionally, visitors will be able to see early office furniture designs by Florence Knoll, and an Isamu Noguchi lamp and rocking stool made for Knoll.
Finally, the Reading Room gives visitors access to a plethora of ephemera and design materials. Documents from the development of Nelson’s first Herman Miller collection and technical designs of the Eames Lounge Chair are among the most important of the various gems in the library.
See the gallery above for a look inside the new MillerKnoll Archive. Additional information on tour tickets will be available at the Cranbrook Art Museum website.
