The year 1945 was a significant one for Herman Miller. It was when the American furniture manufacturer hired architect and designer George Nelson as the company’s first design director, after its president Dirk Jan De Pree saw Nelson’s Storagewall – the first modular storage system – in a magazine.

Nelson went on to create many innovative designs, such as the first L-shaped desk that is the precursor of office workstations. He also recruited many seminal modern designers to the Herman Miller fold, such as Isamu Noguchi, Alexander Girard, and Charles and Ray Eames whose series of moulded plywood furniture including the well-recognised – and much copied – Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman.

These designers have contributed to the shaping of the design landscape for generations, highlighted Kartik Shethia. To this list, he names contemporary designers such as Don Chadwick, Yves Behar, Studio 7.5 and Stefan Diez. Shethia, MillerKnoll’s managing director of APMEA (Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa), International Contract, was in Singapore in late-April for the Singapore launch of the MillerKnoll dealer showroom by the brand’s authorised dealer XTRA.