The MillerKnoll Archives
A curated selection of 1 million objects and ephemera make up the MillerKnoll Archives. Our 12,000-square-foot research and exhibition center in Michigan is a one-of-a-kind look into the evolution of modern design.
The MillerKnoll Archives
The MillerKnoll Archives is a 12,000 square foot research and exhibition space located at the Michigan Design Yard in Holland, home to more than one million objects and pieces of design ephemera. Bringing together the archival collections of Herman Miller, Knoll, and other brands within the MillerKnoll collective, it offers a rare and compelling look into the evolution of modern design.
A Space for Learning and Inspiration
The Archives is organized into three key areas: exhibition space, open storage, and a reading room. It serves as a resource for associates, design partners, researchers, curators, and academics who seek to understand how iconic solutions came to life and how they continue to evolve.
The Inaugural Exhibition
Manufacturing Modern explores the shared histories of Herman Miller and Knoll through the work of the visionaries who shaped modernism. Designers featured include Florence Knoll, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer.
Through iconic objects and archival materials, the exhibition traces the early twentieth century principles of modernism that still shape interiors today.
Open Storage
More than 300 pieces of modern furniture are displayed in open storage racks that trace design from the 1920s to today.
Standout works include a rare prototype of the Knoll Womb Chair gifted by Eero Saarinen to his mother, early Action Office systems by Robert Propst, and an early prototype of the Aeron Chair. Complementing the furniture are photography, advertisements, and graphic design that illustrate the broader cultural impact of modernism.
Inside the Reading Room
A trove of design history lives here. The reading room houses correspondence, drawings, textiles, and original documentation, including memoranda from George Nelson’s first Herman Miller collection, engineering drawings for the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, original paste ups created by Florence Knoll, and product catalogs and fabric samples from the 1940s and 1950s. Together, these materials reveal the thinking, process, and precision behind some of the most enduring designs of the twentieth century.
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