Bill Stumpf

For the baseball player, see Bill Stumpf (baseball).

William Eugene "Bill" Stumpf (March 1, 1936 - August 30, 2006) was a designer for Herman Miller who helped design the Aeron and Ergon chairs.

Stumpf's battle really began in the 1960s. "Everything goes back to those days at the University of Wisconsin–Madison," he said, referring to the postgraduate years he spent studying and teaching at the university's Environmental Design Center. "Everything was about freeing up the body, designing away constraints."

It was there where Stumpf, working with specialists in orthopedic and vascular medicine, conducted extensive research into the ways people sit--and the ways they should sit. In 1974, Herman Miller commissioned him to apply his research to office seating. Two years later, the Ergon chair was introduced.

"I work best when I'm pushed to the edge," he said, "when I'm at the point where my pride is subdued, where I'm an innocent again. Herman Miller knows how to push me that way, mainly because the company still believes — years after D. J. DePree first told me — that good design isn't just good business, it's a moral obligation. Now that's pressure."

Biography

Stumpf was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father died when he was 13, and his mother relocated the family to Winona, Minnesota, to be near her family.

Stumpf served in the U.S. Navy and then earned a bachelor's of fine arts from the University of Illinois and a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Bill Stumpf once said, "I work best when I'm pushed to the edge. When I'm at the point where my pride is subdued, where I'm an innocent again. Herman Miller knows how to push me that way, mainly because the company still believes—years after D.J. De Pree first told me—that good design isn't just good business, it's a moral obligation. Now that's pressure."

Stumpf's association with Herman Miller began in 1970 when he joined the staff of the Herman Miller Research Corporation. After establishing his own firm in 1972, Stumpf created the Ergon chair, the first ergonomic work chair. Later, in collaboration with Don Chadwick, he produced the groundbreaking Equa and iconic Aeron chairs. He also was principal designer for the Ethospace system.

"I enjoy myself, and I do it through design," Stumpf declared in an interview a few years ago. "I love beauty, and I love the availability of beautiful things and useful things immediately around me."

When he looked around, though, too often he saw design that "denies the human spirit," architecture that acknowledged money and not people, offices that were "hermetically sealed in artificial space." He constantly battled against such designed indignity—a battle that began in the 1960s at the University of Wisconsin.

Stumpf's death at age 70 was attributed to complications from abdominal surgery.

Stumpf was married to Sharon Stumpf, and has five grandchildren: Gabriella, Erin, Max, David and Julia.

References

• Staff and Wire Reports. (2006, September 2). Bill Stumpf, 70; Designer Helped Create the Aeron Office Chair. The Los Angeles Times

Bill Stumpf, The Ice Palace That Melted Away: How Good Design Enhances Our Lives, 192 pages, University of Minnesota Press(2000), ISBN 0-8166-3730-X.