Designers

Verner Panton (b. 1926, d. 1998). Worked from 1950-52 in the architectural firm of Arne Jacobsen. Panton's collaboration with Vitra began in the early 1960s, when the firm decided to develop what became his best-known design, the Panton Chair, which was introduced in 1967. This was also the first independently developed product by Vitra.  

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began his career working in his father's stonemasonry business. After an apprenticeship with furniture designer Bruno Paul in Berlin, he joined the office of architect Peter Behrens, whose work presaged the modern movement. In 1912, Mies established his own office in Berlin, and later became a member of the Deutscher Werkbund and Director of the Bauhaus. He immigrated to the United States in 1938, setting up a practice in Chicago. His buildings include the German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona Exposition, the Tugendhat Villa in Brno, Czechoslovakia, the Seagram Building, designed with Philip Johnson, a cluster of residential towers along Chicago's Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, and the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, where he was the director of architecture.

Italian sculptor, university lecturer and furniture designer Harry Bertoia displayed a unique stroke of genius with his patented Diamond Chair for Knoll International in 1952.

While a student at the Kingswood School on the campus of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Florence Knoll Bassett (née Schust) became a protegée of Eero Saarinen. She studied architecture at Cranbrook, the Architectural Association in London and the Armour Institute (Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago). She worked briefly for Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Wallace K. Harrison. In 1946, she became a full business and design partner and married Hans Knoll, after which they formed Knoll Associates.

A graduate of Milan Politecnico, Cini Boeri has incorporated her ideas of expandibility and pliability into many mediums. Her furniture and lighting designs use varied materials such as formless foam pieces, bent glass and polyurethane pieces. Her architecture studio continues in Milan, Italy.

Rud Thygesen (1932) and Johnny Sørensen (1944) both graduated from the Danish School of Arts, Crafts and Design in 1966 and the same year they opened their own design studio. While still at school they established a co-operation with Magnus Olesen, which in 1971was expressed in the first models of a collection of laminated furniture, whose mutual connection, both technologic and aesthetic, is a stringent and functional design. Since then Thygesen and Sørensen have created a number of furniture - mainly in laminated wood. They have contributed considerably to the development of furniture in laminated and moulded wood and designed some of the most successful Danish furniture. They have also designed tubular steel furniture and worked with the design of textiles, lightings etc. Their work is purchased by among others The Danish Arts Foundation, Danish Museum of Art and Design, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, National Museum of Decorative Arts in Norway, Staatliches Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Art Gallery and Museum, The Royal Pavillon in Brighton and Modern Art in New York.  

Protégé of Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer embodied many of the School's distinctive concepts and was and one of the School's most famous students. He returned shortly thereafter to teach carpentry from 1925 to 1928, and during this time designed his tubular-steel furniture collection: functional, simple and distinctly modern.

Edward Barber, born in Shrewsbury in 1969, and Jay Osgerby, born in Oxford in 1969; studied architecture and interior design together at the Royal College of Art in London. They founded their own architecture and design studio – Barber Osgerby – in 1996. Since then, they have worked together at the interface of industrial design, furniture design and architecture.

The Finnish designer Eero Aarnio (b.1932) is one of the great innovators of modern furniture design. In the 1960s, Eero Aarnio began experimenting with plastics, vivid colors and organic forms, breaking away from traditional design conventions.

Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. A member of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), she has taught at the Politecnico di Milano. She has designed furniture, lighting, textiles, showrooms, stage sets for opera and the interior of the Mus‚e D'Orsay, Paris. She has participated in numerous Triennale di Milano, winning many awards. She is an honorary member of the American Society of Interior Designers.

Rene Hougaard (1978) is architect by education from the Aarhus School of Architecture in 2003. The same year he established the furniture company Dnmark, which has created a number of design products causing sensation in Denmark as well as internationally. The Dnmark furniture designs are rooted in the Scandinavian design tradition but with a new angle with an international touch. In 2008 Magnus Olesen took over the furniture company Dnmark. Since then Rene Hougaard has worked in different design studios.  

Design Concern was founded in 1992 by Lone Storgaard (1962), who is an architect specialized in industrial design. Furthermore she has a Ph.D.-degree in research and development of user-friendly products. In close cooperation with customers, partners and specialists within research, trends and new technology Design Concern has developed efficient, sustainable solutions and products to both small, smaller and large international companies - private as well as public - since 1992. Design Concern has a holistic design approach, the key words being people, design, technology and visions. They have specialized in transforming knowledge to user-friendly, innovative and not least sustainable and producible solutions that work. Their peak competence is within their knowledge of users and user-driven design. The foundation of experience is thorough research for more than 10 years. www.designconcern.com