Dezeen Wire: American furniture brand Knoll have been awarded the National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

The information below is from Knoll:

Knoll has won the 2011 National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Winners of the prestigious National Design Award are honored for excellence in design and the public impact of their body of work. This win is a testament to their legacy and also supports their forward-looking vision for design - especially the office of the future.

Knoll’s history is the history of modern design in America.

In 1938, Hans Knoll founded the company based on the conviction that good design enriches and improves our lives—at home and at work. In 1943, he was joined by his wife, Cranbrook-trained Florence, who formed the Planning Unit, a design consultancy devoted to office interiors—the first of its kind and, equally revolutionary, run by a woman.

This pioneering analysis of work patterns continues today, as Knoll leads the way in reimagining furniture for the ever-changing workplace. An early innovator in wood fabrication, Knoll has set standards for clean manufacturing policies and practices that conserve natural resources. Throughout its history, Knoll has fostered the most innovative designers of our time—Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe, Harry Bertoia, Marcel Breuer, Cini Boeri, Richard Sapper, Frank Gehry, Formway and antenna, to name just a few—with one constant goal: a genuine balance of art and industry.

In the last two years, Knoll has made a major investment in design by teaming up with six industrial design groups from around the world. New solutions for the office environment like Generation by Knoll®, MultiGeneration by Knoll™ and Antenna™ Workspaces have rolled out recently.

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