Florence Knoll Bassett

Florence Knoll Bassett was born Florence Schust on May 24, 1917 in Saginaw, Michigan. While studying under Eero Saarinen at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, she developed her widely known nickname, Shu. She went onto earn a degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Armour Institute (the Illinois Institute of Technology). She eventually moved out to New York where she met her future husband Hans Knoll. They got married in 1946 and eventually started a furniture company.

Knoll is famous for her philosophy of "total design," and revolutionized interior space planning. Her approach of embracing everything about a space – architecture, interior design, graphics, textiles and manufacturing – was not the standard mid-century practice in space planning, but it caught on and continues to be the standard today. Shu was also a furniture designer, as well as a great eye for talent. It was under her leadership that many of the modern masters

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