LATE 1800’s AND EARLY 1900’s LATE 1800’s AND EARLY 1900’s CHAIRSCHAIRS

LATE 1800’sUntil the mid-19th century, most chairs were made by hand, but the new industrialists were experimenting with modern production techniques to manufacture high quality furniture swiftly and cheaply in large quantities. Among the most successful was the Austrian manufacturer Michael Thonet, who pioneered the mass-production of bentwood furniture. By the late 1800s, his simply styled chairs had become the first to be used by both aristocrats and factory workers.

Chairs in production at the Thonet factory

Late 1800’s

Side Chair No. 14, 1870Production: Thonet,

Austria

Regarded as the most successful industrial product of the 19th century, the Thonet Chair No. 14 – nicknamed the ‘Consumer Chair’ – owed its popularity to cheapness, lightness and strength. Thonet struggled for years to produce a version of No. 14 which would be suitable for mass-production and succeeded in 1859. Early versions were glued together from laminated wood but, by 1861 Thonet succeeded in making the chair in solid wood with screws, not glue. Thonet continued to improve the design and, by 1867, the Consumer Chair could be made from six pieces of bentwood, ten screws and two washers. By 1870 the Consumer Chair was Thonet’s cheapest model selling for 3 Austrian florins.

LATE 1800’s

Rocking Chair No. 1, 1860Production: Thonet, Austria

The popularity of the Arts and Crafts movement encouraged the middle and upper classes to regard rocking chairs and other rustic styles of furniture with a new affection during the late 1800s. Despite its industrial ethos, Thonet drew inspiration from Arts and Crafts design in the styling of its products. The company developed its first rocking chair, the Rocking Chair No. 1, in 1860. Sales were slow at first, but Rocking Chair No. 1 and subsequent rockers steadily gained popularity and by 1913, one in every twenty chairs sold by Thonet was a rocking chair.

LATE 1800’s

Desk Chair No. 9, c.1905Production: Thonet, Austria

Developed by Thonet as a comfortable, inexpensive desk chair, the No. 9 – or Vienna Chair – went on sale in 1902. It attained iconic status when the architect Le Corbusier chose it to furnish his Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau (the Pavilion of the New Spirit) at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Le Corbusier justified his choice by explaining: “We believe that this chair, millions of which are in use… is a noble thing.” Architects flocked to Paris for the 1925 Exposition from all over the world and Le Corbusier’s pavilion was one of the most admired installations.

EARLY 1900’s

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's design of the studio drawing-room in his house at 78 South Park Terrace, Glasgow,

1902

The early 1900s was a period of continued experimentation in chair design. Innovative designers and architects, such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland and Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann in Austria, strove to apply the geometric forms and monochrome palette favored by the fledgling modern movement to furniture and domestic objects. Made by hand in small quantities, their chairs were mostly bought by wealthy bohemians, except for occasional special commissions for public buildings such as Glasgow tea rooms and Viennese coffee houses.

Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann, Austria

EARLY 1900’s

High-backed chair for the Ingram Street Tea Rooms, 1900Design: Charles Rennie MackintoshReissue: Cassina, Italy

Among the earliest and most eloquent exponents of a modern spirit in British design was the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928). By fusing the influence of traditional Celtic craftsmanship with the purity of Japanese aesthetics, Mackintosh defined a distinctive and highly refined design style on the cusp of Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts Movement and central European Secessionism. One of his most enduring clients was Miss Cranston, who owned a chain of tea rooms in Glasgow and asked Mackintosh to design them. He designed the stark, geometric form of this high-backed chair to contrast boldly with the white walls of the ladies’ luncheon room in the Ingram Street tea room.

EARLY 1900’s

Armchair for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium, 1902Design: Koloman MoserReissue: Wittmann, Austria

As a designer of both graphics and furniture, Koloman Moser (1868-1918) favored the geometric motifs and monochrome palette which were to typify the work of the Wiener Werkstätte, the influential craft workshops that he founded in Vienna with the architect Josef Hoffmann in 1903. This armchair, which was considered as audacious in style by the Austrians of the early 1900s as Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s angular furniture was by his fellow Scots, was originally designed for use in the foyer of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium of which Hoffmann was the architect. At the sanatorium, Moser’s armchairs were arranged in pairs around elegant octagonal tables.

EARLY 1900’s

Cabaret Fledermaus Chair, 1905-1906Design: Josef HoffmannReissue:

Wittmann, Austria

On a visit to England to research the Arts and Crafts Movement in 1902, Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) befriended the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and was impressed by the bold, geometric style of his furniture. Mackintosh’s influence is readily apparent in the fine structure and clean lines of this beech chair that Hoffmann designed for the Cabaret Fledermaus in Vienna. Hoffmann designed every element of the cabaret which he conceived as “a total work of art”. A critic of the time described it as being: “wonderful – the proportions, the light atmosphere, cheerful flowing lines, elegant light fixtures, comfortable chairs of new shape and, finally, the whole tasteful ensemble. Genuine Hoffmann.”

Dictionary1. audacious – drošsirdīgs2. befriended – atbalstīts3. bentwood – liekti līmēts koks 4. conceived – iedomāts5. cusp – ass cilnis6. distinctive and highly refined – atšķirīgs un stipri modernizēts7. eloquent – daiļrunīgs8. ethos – ideāls9. fledgling – pienapuika10. flocked – sakrājās11. justified – attaisnots12. noble – cēls13. octagonal – astoņstūru14. rustic – vienkāršs15. stark – pilnīgi16. strove – cīnījās17. struggled – centās18. subsequent – sekojošais19. swiftly – ātri20. washers – starplika

Materials from www.designmuseum.org

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