Carl Gustav Magnusson was born in Malmö, Sweden, and grew up in Toronto, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada.
[1] He designed Knoll showrooms in London, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Zurich, Florence, Rome, Amsterdam and Turin.
In the late 1980s, Magnusson rekindled Knoll's relationship with renowned designer and esthetic theorist, Ettore Sottass, which led to numerous iconic pieces, including the Mandarin chair and the Spyder table.
[5] Magnusson continued to contribute his own designs to Knoll as well, including the Magnusson Desk (1993), the RPM Chair (1997), and modular office systems—Dividends, with David Noel; Currents, with Robert Reuter; and Autostrada, with Robert Reuter and Charlie Rozier.
[2] Today he continues in the fields of office design and environment, as well as lighting systems, automobiles, and household appliances, furnishings and textiles.