Herman Miller NYC Showroom.
The company that would become Herman Miller had its start as the Michigan Star Furniture Company and was founded in 1905 in Zeeland, Michigan. Michigan Star was a manufacturer of the large, elaborately carved furniture popular in the early 20th century.
In 1923, Michigan Star was bought by D.J. DePree and his father-in-law, Herman Miller, a highly respected businessman well-known in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area for his civic involvement and business acumen. DePree decided to capitalize on the older man’s reputation by renaming the company for him. From then on, the furniture manufacturer has been known as Herman Miller.
The onset of the Great Depression coincided with changes in middle-class Americans’ tastes and lifestyles. Modern homes were smaller and more compact, easily filled up and cluttered by traditional furniture based on European antiques. Moreover, fewer families had servants to dust and polish the typically heavily ornamented pieces.
Business had been falling off for Herman Miller when DePree was visited by a self-taught furniture designer, Gilbert Rohde. Rohde was influenced by the streamlined aesthetic of Bauhaus and French Art Deco and was looking for a company to produce his designs. As timing would have it, Herman Miller had been contracted to provide furniture for the “House of Tomorrow” at the 1932 Worlds Fair in Chicago, and DePree engaged Rohde to design the new furniture for the show.
The new furniture line was a hit with visitors touring the “House of Tomorrow” at the Worlds Fair, so DePree, pleased with the reaction, decided to change the design direction of Herman Miller. In 1935, DePree decided – against his father-in-law’s wishes – to drop the traditional period furniture from their product line altogether.
“Herman Miller would go sled-length into modern design!” DePree exclaimed. Ironically, although it was Rohde that set the company on a new design course, the young man died unexpectedly so few of his designs were included in the company’s revamped approach. But the design direction genie was out of the bottle, a sea change had taken place. Designers would be recruited to create innovative new furniture, lighting, and housewares – designers who would go on to become household names themselves, primarily through their association with Herman Miller.
Herman Miller – Nelson Coconut Chair.
George Nelson
George Nelson was an industrial designer who’s considered a founder of American modernist design and, it could be said, influenced the overall look and feel of postwar American life.
“Design is a response to social change,” he said, and his re-envisioning of the American home even included the concept of the ‘family room.’
His designs for Herman Miller include the Marshmallow Sofa, the Coconut Lounge Chair, and the Action Office II, which we now know as the “office cubicle.” His Bubble Lamps were introduced in 1952, inspired by Swedish silk lamps. With the ingenuity he was known for, he coated the lamps with a resin spray that had been developed by the US military, giving the lamps a translucent and durable finish. His Ball Clock, with spheres radiating out to form a dynamic burst, is still wildly popular today.
In partnership with Herman Miller, George Nelson helped alleviate new social fears born of the Atomic Age. His designs personified the optimism and energy of an America that was becoming an economic powerhouse.
Herman Miller – Eames Lounge chair and ottoman.
Charles and Ray Eames
Charles Eames and his wife, Ray, were a distinctive couple in the design world. Charles was tall and rangy, while Ray was diminutive, her daily costume being a schoolgirlish pinafore and flat Mary Janes.
The two had been exploring new techniques, materials, and design looks from their studio in Venice, California. The pair pursued a wide range of interests, including industrial and graphic design, fine art, and film.
Their association with Herman Miller began in 1946 when the company began producing the Eames’s molded plywood chair, which is still seen and used in homes, schools, and offices today. They reimagined the traditional leather club chair with the iconic black leather and shiny chrome Eames lounge chair and ottoman – which is probably one of the most widely recognized pieces of mid-century modern furniture in the world today. The Eames Chair has inspired a seemingly countless number of knockoffs, but the original has become a coveted collector’s item.
Ray Eames famously said, “What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts” – and the timelessness of the Eames designs has proven her right. Their molded plywood and black leather Lounge and Ottoman, introduced in 1956, remain a touchstone of American mid-century modern style.
Herman Miller – Noguchi Coffee Table.
Isamu Noguchi
The designer who created the most innovative coffee table in America for Herman Miller was also a famous Japanese artist and landscape architect.
“Everything is sculpture,” Isamu Noguchi said. “Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space, I consider sculpture.”
Noguchi worked with an almost enumerable range of materials, mediums, and industries. He designed stage sets for Martha Graham’s modernist dance company, paper lighting fixtures, and the instantly recognizable accent tables that bear his name.
He began working with Herman Miller in 1947, a relationship that came about when one of his designs was used to illustrate an article by George Nelson titled “How to Make a Table.” In response to another designer’s challenge that “anybody could make a three-legged table,” Noguchi finessed the design used in the article. He created a table with just two amorphously shaped legs that lock together in an ingenious design and support a sturdy glass top. That was followed shortly by his famous Rudder table.
Demonstrating the versatility and imagination that Herman Miller sought in their collaborators, Noguchi went on to design gardens, fountains, and murals in Japan, France, and Mexico.
A legacy of modernism and modern life
Herman Miller is much more than a furniture company. It is a cultural institution that, since its embrace of a vibrant and uniquely American worldview in the middle of the 20th century, has created products that are treasured for their beauty, imagination, and inexhaustible practicality. Their furniture, lighting, and housewares have withstood the test of time and have been embraced by one generation after another. One does not buy a Herman Miller product; one invests in it.
