Florence Knoll died January 25, 2019 at the age of 101. She was a pioneering influence in the mid-century modern design aesthetics that are so popular again today. Few may realize that she was born in Saginaw and attended Cranbrook Kingswood in Bloomfield Hills where she met Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Florence went on to study architecture at Columbia University, later London, then IIT, where she met many other influential architects and designers. She met Hans Knoll in the 1940s, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Knoll published a tribute to Florence on its website.
Florence Knoll Bassett, Design Pioneer and Guiding Light of Knoll, Dies at 101