Stumpf thrives on such spontaneity. He likes not knowing his exact destination. He trusts his instincts. "Design should be like jazz," he says, "improvising and discovering, blending the pleasure and pain of life into something wonderful."

When he looks around, though, too often he sees design that "denies the human spirit," architecture that acknowledges money and not people, offices that are "hermetically sealed in artificial space." His is a constant battle against such designed indignity, and he's joined forces with Herman Miller for more than 20 years in waging it.

Stumpf's battle really began in the 1960s. "Everything goes back to those days at the University of Wisconsin," he says, 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 says, "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."

Stumpf knows how to push himself, too. He's taken up a quest that he expects will last for the rest of his life, reading the classics of world literature "all the books I should have read already" from Shakespeare and Melville to the Japanese novelists.

In a state of constant, almost childlike curiosity, Bill Stumpf continues his wide-ranging journeys. And, if you have some time and an open mind he'll be more than happy to share his discoveries with you.