Like so many of her groundbreaking designs that became the gold standard for the industry, the 1961 executive collection, including the coffee and end tables, made there way into the pantheon of modern classics. Florence Knoll's designs are reserved and cool, severe and angular, reflecting the objective perfectionism of the early 1960s. 
 
While a student on the campus of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Florence Knoll Bassett became a proteg??e of Eero Saarinen. She worked briefly for Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Wallace K. Harrison. In 1946, she married Hans Knoll, after which they formed Knoll Associates. As a pioneer of the Knoll Planning Unit, she revolutionized interior space planning with her belief in "total design" - embracing all aspects of design principles which were radical departures from the standard practice in the 1950s, but were quickly adopted and remain widely used today. For her extraordinary contributions to architecture and design, Florence Knoll was accorded the National Endowment for the Arts' prestigious 2002 National Medal of Arts.