[1] Perhaps because of his father's views, or perhaps because he wanted to follow many other German modernists who had emigrated, Knoll left Germany in 1936, and first moved to England.
In 1943, Knoll was approached by Florence Schust, an architect who had studied under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen.
Schust convinced Knoll that she could help bring in business to his company even in America's wartime economy by expanding into interior design and working with architects.
Knoll moved the firm's headquarters to Pennsylvania in 1950, believing that he would be able to find talented craftsmen among the region's large German population.
Knoll's sales force included Irving Blum, who was soon to become Andy Warhol's dealer for the groundbreaking Campbell's Soup Can show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962.