A Showroom, Reconsidered

For one evening, the Western DTLA showroom was transformed into something it had never been before…

For one evening, the Western showroom on Figueroa Street was transformed into something it had never been before — a curated exhibition tracing the full lineage of Knoll design, from its earliest modernist foundations to the present day. Every Western piece came out. In its place: iconic Knoll objects, borrowed from MillerKnoll storage, arranged not as product but as history.

The result was Western Presents Knoll: An Evening with Jonathan Olivares — part cultural event, part design retrospective, part conversation about what it means to build environments that endure.

In collaboration with Knoll · MillerKnoll · Maharam

Western Presents Knoll – An Evening with Jonathan Olivares

THE CONCEPT — Design as Continuum.

Knoll has shaped the way modern environments are imagined, built, and experienced for over eighty years. The exhibition positioned that legacy not as a fixed moment in history, but as an ongoing continuum — a way of thinking about design that remains modern, always.

Western’s role was curatorial. The showroom became the medium. The objects, the archive, the textiles, the system, and the people in the room together told the story.

THE TIMELINE — A Century of Design on the Walls.

Floor-to-ceiling exhibition posters lined the space — a decade-by-decade visual narrative running from the 1920s through today. Each era had its own poster, its own objects, its own designers. Iconic pieces stood in front of their corresponding panels: the Hat Trick Chair beside the 1970s–1990s era, the Pollock arm chair beside Corporate Modernism, the Diamond Chair and Bird Chair in red beside Sculptural Modernism, each one contextualized by original photography, designer portraits, vintage advertisements, and archival imagery.

Guests moved through the room the way you move through a museum — slowly, reading, looking, stopping.

THE ARCHIVE — Shown Publicly for the First Time.

At the center of the showroom, Western unveiled its exclusive collection of Knoll ephemera — assembled over decades and shown publicly for the first time. Original printed matter, vintage advertisements, product catalogues, design drawings, and archival photographs were arranged beneath acrylic on a table. Guests leaned in. Some spent twenty minutes there.

On the video wall, Western’s Knoll archive ran continuously — a curated sequence of footage and imagery that gave the collection motion and time.

THE TEXTILES — Maharam Brought the Surface.

Maharam curated an entire table of Knoll textile samples — wovens, velvets, stripes, textures — arranged alongside the Knoll Textiles reference book, open to the pages that mapped the collection’s history. Guests handled the fabrics. Conversations started there and didn’t stop.

THE SYSTEM — From Mies to the Modern Office.

Anchoring the far end of the showroom: the Knoll Dividends Skyline system, presented as a fully realized contemporary workspace. Warm task lighting. Cobalt blue seating. Clean material surfaces. The system brought the exhibition’s arc to its natural conclusion — from Mies van der Rohe to the modern office, from tubular steel to the way we work today.

THE SYSTEM — Knoll Dividends Skyline.

Dividends Skyline responds with a flexible, holistically integrated system that brings privacy, focus, and collaboration into today’s open plan while maintaining visual clarity and architectural cohesion.

To learn more on the new Dividends Skyline system, click below.

Click Me

THE GUEST — Jonathan Olivares.

Jonathan Olivares, Creative Director of Knoll and author of A Taxonomy of Office Chairs (Phaidon), joined the evening as guest and presenter. He spoke about design as a relational practice — about the connection between objects, space, and the people who inhabit them. He also curated the evening’s music. The room was full of excited people, and for the duration of his presentation, it was completely still.

Furniture is relational — not only to space, but to the ways people live. As architecture evolves to accommodate new patterns of life, furniture must evolve with it.

— Jonathan Olivares, Creative Director, Knoll

THE EVENING — The Room.

Guests arrived to candlelight, wine, and passed deviled eggs on silver trays by Belli Belli. Knoll pens and notebooks were set out at the entrance. The crowd — architects, interior designers, design professionals, and longtime Western clients — moved through the space in conversation, pausing at the archive table, running their hands across the Maharam textiles, photographing the timeline posters, gathering around Olivares.

It felt less like a product event and more like a cultural moment. That was the intention.

Every space we touch is a reflection of careful problem solving, collaboration, and execution. From multi-themed headquarters to dynamic workplaces that move people, Western Office brings vision to life through thoughtful design support, ancillary expertise, and seamless project delivery.