Florence Marguerite Knoll Bassett (née Schust; born May 24, 1917) is an American architect and furniture designer who studied under Miesvan deer Rohe and Eliel Saarinen.
While at Kingswood, Florence befriended Eilel Saarinen, whom she would later study under at Cranbrook. The connections she made and the skills she developed while at Cranbrook were the foundations of Florence Schust’s incredible design education and pioneering career. With recommendations from Eliel Saarinen and Alvar Aalto, Florence went on to study under some of the greatest 20th century architects, including Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
In 1941 Florence moved to New York where she met Hans Knoll who was establishing his furniture company. With Florence’s design skills and Hans’ business acumen and salesmanship, the pair, who married in 1946, grew the nascent company into an international arbiter of style and design.