With the addition of six new colour options for Richard Schultz’s classic 1966 Collection, Knoll allows patio and outdoor spaces to emulate the colorful environments of cabanas in the tropics. Consisting of an array of bright, electric hues – plum, yellow, lime green, blue, and orange – and one more earthy, atmospheric tone – green – the new colour options extend the palettes originally developed for Jonathan Olivares’ Olivares Chair and David Adjaye’s Washington Collection, respectively, to the powder-coated legs of Richard Schultz’s eponymous collection. Customers can now coordinate patio products from four different designers (Richard Schultz, Jonathan Olivares, David Adjaye, and Daniel Stromborg) to create a diverse but unified outdoor colour scheme.
In determining the colours for his first collaborative design with Knoll, Olivares originally cited two key influences, Knoll design director Benjamin Pardo and British artist David Hockney.
“We developed the colours with Benjamin Pardo, he was totally instrumental in developing the palette. We were looking at David Hockney paintings and wondering what are good outdoor colours? What are good outdoor, artificial colours? We were drawn in by [Hockney’s] paintings’ acceptance of artificiality,” Olivares recalled. “A die-cast aluminum and powder-coated chair is an artificial object. We wanted to be very clear that it was inspired by nature but man-made.”
The choice is especially fitting given that Hockney, himself, recently exhibited a number of paintings he composed en plein air on an iPad at a gallery in San Francisco.
David Adjaye’s Washington Collection also testifies to a painterly influence. Combining the British-Ghanian architect’s long-standing interest in the interaction of materials and natural light with the aesthetic inklings of the designer’s close friend and accomplished painter Chris Ofili, the Washington Collection Side Chair is available in either a subdued matte color palette -green, black, grey, and white – or two reflective finishes, copper and brushed nickel, announcing the designer’s sculptural ambitions. (Please note that the brushed nickel and copper finishes are not suitable for outdoor use.) Chris Ofili, in turn, incorporated the striking silhouette of Adjaye and his designs in a confettied painting titled “Lime Bar,” which features the designer, his wife, and an Aluminum Side Chair cast in black.
Applied to the equally eye-catching and functional non-corrosive 1966 Collection, the new and extended colourways will make a fetching addition to the patio collection of any committed modernist.
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