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The magic of an archive often has to do with discoveryof an idea that never made it out of a sketchbook, the behind-the-scenes lore only a handful of confidantes are privy to, and the mundane items that time transforms into holy grails. Now, the field of modern design has a new archive to salivate over, courtesy of MillerKnoll. Composed of over one million objects and held in a 12,000-square-foot facility at MillerKnolls headquarters in Western Michigan, the archive includes visible storage; a reading room for researchers; and an exhibition space. There, visitors can spy everything from the streamlined objects Gilbert Rohde designed for the 1933 Worlds Fair to prototypes of the Eames Action Office and pattern-drenched postmodernist chairs by Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. Its a whos-who list of modern design history, all under one roof. But the archivedesigned in collaboration with the New York-based consultancy Standard Issueis more than a repository for historic artifacts; its something that can help develop new ideas and tell untold stories. The great excitement for me is not one particular item, not one particular narrative; but the endless opportunity that it presents to make more connections, says Ben Watson, the chief creative and product officer at MillerKnoll. The Story of Modern Design History has been an important part of the individual brands that comprise MillerKnoll, which includes Herman Miller, Knoll, Design Within Reach, Hay, and Muuto, among others. In silos, they told a company-specific story; all together the collection represents the myriad narratives that shaped how modern furniture became a business, from ambitious ideas to the nuts and bolts of how objects actually get made. MillerKnoll Director of Archives and Brand Heritage Amy Auscherman and Chief Creative and Product Officer Ben Watson [Photo: courtesy MillerKnoll] You really get this encyclopedic look at furniture through the lens of these American design brands, says Amy Auscherman, the director of Archives and Brand Heritage at MillerKnoll. What makes the MillerKnoll archive unique, or maybe even more illustrative of the history of design, is we have the finished object, but we also have the correspondence internally with the product development team and the suppliers that outlines why certain decisions got made or why they didnt. Institutions like MoMA or Cooper Hewitt or the Library of Congress might have marketing material, but they dont have board minutes and business files. A significant impetus for the new archive was Herman Millers 2021 purchase of Knoll for $1.8 billion. At the time, the contract furniture industry was reeling from the pandemic. According to a report in Business of Home, Knoll experienced a mass cancellation of orders and forecasted that it would run out of cash. After the acquisition, the publicly traded company changed its name to MillerKnoll, with Herman Miller shareholders owning 78% of the company and Knoll shareholders owning 22%. Since then, MillerKnoll has been integrating Knoll into the business. The companys sales grew between 2021 and 2023, but dropped 11.2% in 2024. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] To Auscherman, who was Herman Millers archivist before the acquisition, getting an inside look at what another giant in the business of American modernism collected felt like a dream come true, she says. Knolls collectionwhich accounts for about half of the MillerKnoll archivewas spread across a few locations: marketing and communications documentation plus KnollTextiles objects lived in its former office in Midtown; most of the furniture was kept in a distribution warehouse in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, where the brand was headquartered and had a museum. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] Among the rare materials in the Knoll collection? The material assemblages Florence Knoll created for Knoll Planning Unit clients; Harry Bertoia sculptures including his bronze screens, Sonambients, and dandelions; and a rare Isamu Noguchi Cylinder No. 9 lamp, a design he made before his Akari series. Knoll acquired the Italian furniture company Gavinawhich produced works by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Carlo and Tobia Scarpa, Cini Boeri, and Mario Bellini, and owned the rights to Marcel Breuers Cesca chairin 1968 and so some of the most important European modernist designs are part of the archive, too. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] The expanded range of materials helps deepen the story of modern furniture. A personal mission of mine, and my colleagues, is to widen the canon of design history, Auscherman says. So taking that opportunity to sort of use the space to talk about the Eames splint, but also talk about how Gae Aulenti made aluminum extrusion furniture and was taking architecture and turning it into furniture. The archives inaugural exhibition, Manufacturing Modern, brings together some of the greatest hits from Herman Miller and Knoll to demonstrate the spirit of experimentation and innovation that they possessed, from the molded contours of the Eames Lounge chair and Eero Saarinen Womb chair (both shaped by the designers participation in MoMAs 1941 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition and exhibition) to the bent tubular steel in the Marcel Breuer Cesca chairs. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] A Working Archive Visible storage, organized chronologically, accounts for a significant part of the archive. Through this, visitors are able to see a timeline of how innovations like foam unlocked new formal expressions or how designers experimented with modular seating through the decades. While the new archive is certainly bait for historians and fans of modern design, it also serves as an important touchpoint for contemporary designers working with MillerKnoll who will visit the archive as they develop new products. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] We can both see and be inspired by how those before us solved problems materially, formally, and visually, Watson says. All those things are possible sources of inspiration and learning. You can, instead of repeating mistakes, hopefully go farther, or start with those things and go into new dimensions that weren’t possible or couldn’t be imagined previously. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] And these stories resonate well with the people who buy furniture, too. If youve looked at the furniture landscape recently, reissues and archival designs seem to be more popular than ever, from CB2s Design Legends series to Ikeas revivals of highly coveted vintage items. Herman Millers New Mexico collectionwhich included a chair inspired by a seat that Ray Eames gave Georgia O’Keeffe and a replica of an Alexander Girard table from the 1950s that wasnt widely producedsold out in two hours. With the archive, MillerKnoll is leveraging its competitive edge: over a centurys worth of history. I believe that today’s consumers are very design savvy and also that they can sniff out when stories are authentic and legitimate, and if objects have their reason for being, Watson says. The approach for all the brands at MillerKnoll is not to chase after trends or make products that are fashion driven for seasonal splash; the only reason they should be reborn is to solve a problem that’s real today, not to have some jive marketing story or to be an exercise in nostalgia. [Photo: Nicholas Calcott for MillerKnoll] Making Design More Accessible The MillerKnoll archive is open by appointment to researchers and will offer some ticketed public vsiting opportunities through Cranbrook University, where many MillerKnoll designers studied, and through Docomomo, a modernist preservation organization. Recently Auscherman hosted a group of fifth graders from a local school who were working on a class project on designing chairs. One of them, perhaps inspired by the Saarinen Tulip collection, sketched a flower and called it their own tulip chair. That was super fun to get to do, Auscherman says. This is a space for inspiration and making design accessible to people.
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E-Commerce
Europe and the United States are meeting in Paris to negotiate a settlement of a tense tariff spat with global economic ramifications between two global economic powerhouses.The European Union’s top trade negotiator, Maroš Šefčovič, met Wednesday with his American counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.“We’re advancing in the right direction at pace,” Šefčovič said at a news conference. He said ongoing technical meetings between EU and U.S. negotiators in Washington would be soon followed by a video conference between himself and Greer to then “assess the progress and charter the way forward.”Brussels and Washington are unlikely to reach a substantive trade agreement in Paris. The issues dividing them are too difficult to resolve quickly.President Donald Trump regularly fumes about America’s persistent trade deficit with the European Union, which was a record $161 billion last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.Trump blames the gap between what the U.S. sells and what it buys from Europe on unfair trade practices and often singles out for criticism the EU’s 10% tax on imported cars. America’s was 2.5% until Trump raised it to 25% in April. The EU has argued its purchases of U.S. services, especially in the technology sector, all but overcome the deficit.After the Trump administration’s surprise tariffs last week on steel rattled global markets and complicated the ongoing, wider tariff negotiations between Brussels and Washington, the EU on Monday said it is preparing “countermeasures” against the U.S.The EU has offered the U.S. a “zero for zero” deal in which both sides end tariffs on industrial goods, including autos. Trump has rejected that idea, but EU officials say it’s still on the table.The EU could buy more liquefied natural gas and defense items from the U.S., and lower duties on cars, but it isn’t likely to budge on calls to scrap the value added tax, which is akin to a sales tax, or open up the EU to American beef.“We still have a few weeks to have this discussion and negotiation,” French Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin said in Paris on Wednesday ahead of the OECD meeting. “If the discussion and negotiation do not succeed, Europe is capable of having countermeasures on American products and services as well.”Greta Peisch, who was general counsel for the U.S. trade representative in the Biden administration, said the zero-for-zero proposal could provide a way to make progress if the Trump administration “is looking for a reason not to impose tariffs on the EU.”But Peisch, now a partner at the Wiley Rein law firm, wondered: “How motivated is the U.S. to come to a deal with the EU?” Trump, after all, has longstanding grievances and complaints about EU trade practices.One target of his ire is the value-added tax, similar to U.S. state sales taxes.Trump and his advisers consider VATs unfair protectionism because they are levied on U.S. products. But VATs are set at a national level, not by the EU, and apply to domestic and imported products alike, so they have not traditionally been considered a trade barrier. There is little chance governments will overhaul their tax systems to appease Trump.Likewise, the Europeans are likely to balk at U.S. demands to scrap food and safety regulations that Washington views as trade barriers. These include bans on hormone-raised beef, chlorinated chicken and genetically modified foods.“When you start talking about chickens or GMOs or automobile safety standards, you’re talking about the ways countries choose to regulate their economies,” Peisch said. “We think that’s protectionist. They think it’s keeping their citizens healthy . . . It’s been a sore point for 60 years.” McNeil reported from Barcelona and Wiseman reported from Washington, D.C. Catherine Gaschka, Sam McNeil and Paul Wiseman, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
TikTok, a platform where misinformation and dangerous rhetoric often spreads far and wide, has officially removed the #SkinnyTok hashtag from its search results. The hashtag had become a space for creators to promote restrictive eating and other forms of unhealthy weight-loss content. TikTok spokesperson Paolo Ganino told Politico that the move was part of a regular review of the platforms risks, but it followed considerable pressure from the European Union. Fast Company has reached out to TikTok for comment and will update this post if we hear back. ‘Revolting and absolutely unacceptable’ In April, Frances minister for digital media, Clara Chappaz, requested that the nations media regulator, Arcom, look into the hashtag. The agency teamed up with the European Commission to review the revolting and absolutely unacceptable videos, as Chappaz described them. The European Commission has also been investigating TikToks risk management of addictive design and harmful content since February 2024. Users searching #SkinnyTok will now see a landing page that reads, If you or someone you know has questions about body image, food, or exerciseit is important to know that help is out there and you are not alone. If you feel comfortable, you can confide in someone you trust or check out the resources below. Please remember to take care of yourselves and each other. It also has a resources link with an explainer on eating disorders, steps to take if you or your friend needs support, and emergency information. TikTok’s community guidelines prohibit videos that promote eating disorders and dangerous weight loss behaviors, and selling or promoting products to lose weight. Last year, TikTok even banned Liv Schmidt, a popular user known for posting controversial eating habits, for violating community guidelines. However, she freely posted to her 670,000 followers until The Wall Street Journal sent questions to TikTok for a profile on Schmidt. She created a new account following her ban. Could other platforms see a #SkinnyTok spillover? Now, #SkinnyTok might be gone from TikTok’s search results, but whos to say that users wont migrate to another hashtag or platform to keep sharing these harmful videos? Despite the community guidelines, this content continued out in the open through a well-known hashtag. Before regulatory agencies stepped in, users who searched for #SkinnyTok would see a message from TikTok stating, You are more than your weight, accompanied by a resources button. But the harmful content followed right behind it, violating the rules and risking the health of the users who absorbed it. TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, has 1.58 billion monthly users, according to data from SproutSocial. Its largest audience is in the United States.
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E-Commerce
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