Warren Platner For Knoll Coffee Table

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About the Item

A Classic Mid Century design by Warren Platter for Knoll with steel rod construction and surmounted by a beveled glass top. The frame of the Platner table features vertical steel wire rods welded to circular horizontal and edge-framing rods in a nickel finish.

Dimensions: 36″ W x 15 1/4″ H

Condition: Please see detail photos There are some age related scratches to glass consistent with use which do not greatly impact this iconic Mid Century design.Creator: Warren Platner (Designer)Design: Platner Coffee TablePlatner SeriesDimensions: Height: 15.25 in (38.74 cm)Diameter: 36 in (91.44 cm)Style: Mid-Century Modern (In the Style Of)Materials and Techniques: Glass,SteelPeriod: 21st CenturyDate of Manufacture: 21st CenturyCondition: FairWear consistent with age and use.Seller Location: Bridgeport, CTReference Number: Seller: 2592471stDibs: LU1755239263032Shop All Warren Platner

Warren Platner

Though vintage Warren Platner chairs, sofas and interiors are icons of mid-century modernism, the architect and furniture designer took his stylistic inspiration from as far back as 18th-century France, once saying about his seminal collection for Knoll that his design intent was to evoke the kind of decorative, gentle, graceful kind of design that appeared in period style like Louis XV.

Indeed, the marriage of modern sensibility and classical grace is a marker of Platners style across furnishings and interiors both genres in which he left an enduring legacy.

Born in 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland, Platner studied architecture at Cornell before cutting his teeth working for design icons like Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche, eventually serving as head of interior design in the latters office. In 1965, Platner opened his own office, in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he continued to hone his particular brand of graceful modernism.

Knoll released the Platner Collection of seating and tables in 1966. (Originally designed in 1962, the suite took nearly four years of development to bring to life.)

The decorative bent-metal-and-glass pieces an armchair, a dining table and more make certain nods to the trademarks of his former employers, but also to the shapes of historic European furniture. The sculptural elegance of his line recalls Saarinens iconic Tulip collection, which includes armchairs and dining tables, while his materiality aligns with Roches cutting-edge use of glass and metal for the headquarters of the Ford Foundation in New York.

Many of Platners Knoll pieces would go on to find homes in a certain fabled locale: the Windows on the World restaurant at the original World Trade Center, whose interiors Platner was tapped to outfit in the mid-1970s. Upon the opening of the restaurant in 1976, New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger dubbed its style sensuous modernism an apt tagline for Platners oeuvre as a whole.

Platner died in 2006 at the age of 86. His furniture is still produced by Knoll, and original examples along with idiosyncratic custom works he created for interior design clients are coveted by collectors today.

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