Gilbert Rohde and the transformation of Herman Miller

Reintroducing the company’s first-ever design director – and the ideas that modernised the furniture industry.


Written by: Amy Auscherman

Photos courtesy of: Herman Miller Archives

Published: 26 July 2024

An archival black and white portrait of designer Gilbert Rohde in a repeating pattern of eight, with a yellow overlay.

Gilbert Rohde, 1934

New Yorker and nascent industrial designer Gilbert Rohde walked into Herman Miller’s Grand Rapids showroom looking for work in July 1930. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Following a trip to Europe in 1927, Rohde returned with Bauhaus-inspired ideas that better suited contemporary architecture and lifestyles in America. Inspired by his former Stuyvesant High School classmate Lewis Mumford, whose writings made ideas about architecture and cities more accessible, Rohde sought to produce modern furniture not just for wealthy private clients, but for everyone.

“The most interesting thing in the home is the people who live there,” Rohde told De Pree. “I’m designing for them.”

In his sales pitch to Herman Miller founder D.J. De Pree, Rohde preached the importance of human-centred design. “The most interesting thing in the home is the people who live there,” Rohde told De Pree. “I’m designing for them.” Described as a “vivid and persuasive talker,” in a 1944 obituary from Interiors magazine, Rohde convinced De Pree to take a risk and shift Herman Miller’s business entirely, transforming the company into the juggernaut it is known as today. Gone was the focus on antique reproductions, replaced by problem-solving modern furniture, the likes of which had never been seen in a West Michigan woodshop.

At Herman Miller, Rohde demonstrated the impact that design could have on operating a business. He consulted not only on product design, but also evolved manufacturing processes and taught the company how to sell by producing the first catalogues and showrooms devoted to modern furniture. He catapulted the West Michigan company to the global stage at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair by furnishing the bedrooms of the Design for Living House with modular and clean-lined case goods. Seen by millions at the fair, Rohde’s designs also garnered coverage in magazines like House Beautiful and DOMUS. The seeds were planted and Rohde’s ideas of modularity and pursuit of material and manufacturing innovation remain at the centre of Herman Miller’s business.

A catalog cover from 1942: An History of Modern Furniture from Prehistoric Times to the Post War Era.

An History of Modern Furniture from Prehistoric Times to the Post War Era, an early catalogue developed in 1942 by Rohde and illustrated by Peggy Ann Mack.

An archival black and white photo of Herman Miller's Chicago showroom in 1939, with curved wood walls with a freeform curvy cutout, upholstered sofa, and lucite coffee table and end table.

Signature curves for Herman Miller’s Chicago showroom, 1939

From 1936 until his sudden death in 1944, Rohde collaborated with Peggy Ann Mack, an artist and industrial designer who trained at Pratt Institute and the Design Laboratory, a tuition-free design school started by the Works Progress Administration and headed by Rohde. Mack was hired into Rohde’s office and worked on showroom, exhibition and product design. She is named as the illustrator of striking and biomorphic Herman Miller modern catalogue designs from 1941. Mack and Rohde also married that year. During her time in the studio, furniture design shifted from strictly rectilinear and modular and evolved to incorporate organic shapes that were emerging in contemporary art and would later define midcentury modern design.

Rohde’s genius lay in his polymath interest in culture at large. Prior to industrial design, he spent time as a music and drama critic, a cartoonist and a fashion illustrator. His skill at perceiving changes in society allowed Rohde to anticipated people’s needs. 

An archival black and white photo of the Paldao Table, a curvy organic-shaped low coffee table with various decor atop a shaggy rug, with wood cabinet and sofa nearby.

Rohde was inspired by the burgeoning modern art scene – particularly the visual language of biomorphism, which can be seen in his Paldao Table.

An archival black and white photo of the Rohde Easy Chair, an upholstered cushy lounge chair with tapered wood legs and tufting in a diamond pattern.

An early promotional image of Rohde’s Easy Chair, which featured diamond-patterned tufts and a curvy seat – a shift from his rectilinear approach to design during the 1930s.

As he told De Pree at the outset of his collaboration with Herman Miller, “You’re not just making furniture anymore; you’re making a way of living.”

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