Bel meetings

Designers
& architects

Harry Bertoia

Bertoia left Italy at the age of 15, first learning traditional jewelry-making before enrolling at the renowned Cranbrook Academy of Art, a true incubator of American design.

Impressed by his creativity, the Knolls gave him free rein in 1952 to design a chair. The result remains a cornerstone of their catalog: the Diamond Chair. It was the first in a series that went on to include the Side Chair, the Barstool, the Bird Lounge Chair with ottoman, and the Bertoia Asymmetric Chaise—the latter staying at the prototype stage until Knoll finally produced it in 2005.

Their welded steel wire grid structure gave birth to forms that were almost sculptural, as Bertoia himself put it: “If you look at these chairs, they are made mainly of air, like a sculpture. They are traversed by space.”

Bel Œil high back chair Harry Bertoia Knoll

An eclectic artist, Bertoia—freed from financial concerns thanks to the enduring success of his designs—devoted himself from 1960 onward to metal sculpture, vibrating with references to nature, sound, and the movement of vegetation. He even recorded around ten albums, all released under the name Sonambient.

Link: Bertoia Chair

The Bouroullec Brothers