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This S33 chair by Mart Stam is a design icon from 1926. It was produced by the German Thonet manufactory. Our piece comes from the 1960s. It is the first cantilever chair in the history. Mart Stam experimented with gas pipes which he connected by flanges and developed the form of chairs that no longer rest on four legs. In this way, he created a construction principle that has become an important element in the history of modern furniture design. This chair is made of tubular steel, over which black natural leather has been stretched. This chair combines the spirit of the Bauhaus school and the awareness of tradition. Why four legs, when two are enough – wrote the artist Kurt Schwitters in 1927, when he saw the first cantilever chairs in history. This piece has a label under the seat, but now is just a traces after this label.
Mart Stam was a Dutch architect, town planner and furniture designer. His career coincides with important moments in the history of European architecture of the 20th century. He is credited with part of the design of the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, built between 1926 and 1930. This coffee and tea factory is still a powerful example of early modern industrial architecture. New research indicates that Stam was inspired by the cantilever tubular steel seat fitted to the 1926 Tatra T12 two-door saloon. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe found out about Stam’s work on the chair during the planning of the Weissenhof Siedlung and mentioned it to Marcel Breuer. This led to a variation on the cantilever steel chair and ushered in an entire genre of design. In the late 1920s, Breuer and Stam were involved in a patent process in German courts, both claiming to be the inventors of the basic principle of cantilever chair design. Stam won the lawsuit. In the US, Breuer assigned the rights to his designs to Knoll and for this reason you can find an identical chair attributed to Stam in Europe and Breuer in the USA.
Mart Stam designed a house for the Weissenhof estate from 1927, a permanent housing project developed and presented at the Die Wohnung exhibition, organized by Deutscher Werkbund in Stuttgart. This placed him in the company of crme de la crme of the architectural circles, i.e. Le Corbusier, Peter Behrens, Bruno Taut, Hans Poelzig and Walter Gropius.
Thonet is the oldest existing furniture company in the world. It began its long business in 1819 when the carpenter Michael Thonet founded a furniture workshop in Boppard, Germany. A supporter of the Biedermeier style, he specialized in chairs, tables and cabinets characterized by clean lines, reduced ornamentation and an emphasis on the principles of functionalism. In the 1930s, Thonet’s experiments with glued and steam-bent wood furniture, such as his famous Boppard chair (1836), brought international acclaim. Thonet’s projects achieved lightness, durability and comfort unprecedented in European furniture at that time. The iconic works of the Thonet collection include: rocking chair No. 1 (1860), cafe chair No. 14 (c. 1859), chair of the Adolf Loos cafe museum (1899), chair No. 209 (c. 1900), Otto Wagner’s chair No. 247 (1904) and Josef Hoffmann’s No. 811 (1925). In the early 1920s, Gebrder Thonet also began producing bent tubular steel designs by Bauhaus masters such as Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Mart Stam.
This chair is in original vintage condition. It has minor scratches on the leather and a natural patina. Measure: The seat is 43 cm high.Creator: Thonet (Maker),Mart Stam (Designer)Dimensions: Height: 33.47 in (85 cm)Width: 19.3 in (49 cm)Depth: 23.63 in (60 cm)Seat Height: 16.93 in (43 cm)Style: Bauhaus (In the Style Of)Materials and Techniques: Chrome,LeatherPlace of Origin: GermanyPeriod: 1960-1969Date of Manufacture: circa 1960Condition: GoodWear consistent with age and use. This chair is in original vintage condition. It has minor scratches on the leather and a natural patina.Seller Location: Warszawa, PLReference Number: 1stDibs: LU6129226662422Shop All Thonet
Thonet
For more than 180 years, Thonet or Gebrder Thonet has produced elegant and durable tables and cabinets as well as chairs, stools and other seating that wholly blur the lines between art and design. Widely known as a trailblazer in the use of bentwood in furniture, the European manufacturer has reimagined the places in which we gather.
Noted for his skill in parquetry, German-Austrian company founder Michael Thonet received an invitation from Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich to contribute Neo-Rococo interiors to the Liechtenstein City Palace in Vienna. The Boppard-born Thonet had honed his carpentry skills in his fathers workshop, where he carried out experiments with plywood and modified the Biedermeier chairs that populated the studio.
Thonets work for the chancellor raised his profile, and the cabinetmaker gained international recognition, including at Londons Great Exhibition of 1851, which featured works created by members of the Arts and Crafts movement as well as industrial products of the day. Thonet showed a range of furniture at the fair and won the bronze medal for his bentwood chairs. He incorporated his familys company, the Thonet Brothers, with his sons in 1853.
Bentwood furniture dates as far back as the Middle Ages, but it is the 19th-century cabinetmaker Thonet who is most often associated with this now-classic technique. Thonet in 1856 patented a method for bending solid wood through the use of steam, and from there, the bentwood look skyrocketed to furniture fame. The works of renowned mid-century modern designers such as Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen, and Charles and Ray Eames that put this technological advancement to use would not be as extensive or celebrated were it not for the efforts of the pioneering Thonet.
Considered the worlds oldest mass-produced chair, Michael Thonets ubiquitous Chair No. 14 demonstrated that his patented bentwood technology made it possible to efficiently produce furniture on an industrial scale. Now known as the 214, it won the German Sustainability Award Design for 2021, a recognition of the companys commitment to environmentally responsible production.
Often called the Coffee House chair the companys first substantial order was for a Viennese coffeehouse the No. 14 remains an icon. Thonet originally designed the chair in 1859, and it is considered the starting point for modern furniture.
The bentwood process opened doors there were investments in machinery and new industrial processes, and the business began mass-producing furniture. By the end of the 1850s, there were additional Thonet workshops in Eastern Europe and hundreds of employees. Michael Thonets reputation attracted the attention of notable architects including Otto Wagner, Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
The No. 14 was followed by the No. 18, or the Bistro chair, in 1867, and the 209, or the Architects chair, of whichLe Corbusierwas a fan. (The influentialSwiss-French architect and designerused Thonet furniture in his Pavillon de lEsprit Nouveau at the1925 International Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris.)
Thonets chair designs also appeared in artwork by Toulouse-Lautrec, John Sloan and Henri Matisse in his Interior with a Violin Case. The noteworthy Thonet rocking chair remains a marvel of construction in the middle of the 19th century, Michael produced a series of rockers in which the different curved parts were integrated into fluid, sinuous wholes. Thanks to Thonet, the humble rocker acquired something unexpected: style. It was captured in the paintings of Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and James Tissot.
Thonet is currently split into global divisions. Thonet Industries U.S.A. was acquired in 1987 by Shelby Williams and joined the CF Group in 1999, while the Thonet brand in Germany is owned by Thonet GmbH.
Find a collection of antique Thonet furniture on 1stDibs.
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