LATE 1800’s AND EARLY 1900’s

CHAIRS
LATE 1800’s
Until 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
Chairs in production at the furniture. By the late 1800s, his
Thonet factory simply styled chairs had
become the first to be used by
both aristocrats and factory
workers.
 Late 1800’s
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 Side Chair No. 14, 1870
was Thonet’s cheapest model selling for 3 Production: Thonet,
Austrian florins. Austria
 LATE 1800’s
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 Rocking Chair No. 1, 1860
steadily gained popularity and by 1913, Production: Thonet, Austria
one in every twenty chairs sold by
Thonet was a rocking chair.
LATE 1800’s
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
Desk Chair No. 9, c.1905
are in use… is a noble thing.” Architects Production: Thonet, Austria
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
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 Charles Rennie
for public buildings such as Glasgow tea Mackintosh's design of
the studio drawing-room
rooms and Viennese coffee houses.
in his house at 78 South
Park Terrace, Glasgow,
1902

Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann, Austria

 EARLY 1900’s
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
High-backed chair
enduring clients was Miss Cranston, who for the Ingram
owned a chain of tea rooms in Glasgow Street Tea Rooms,
and asked Mackintosh to design them. He 1900
designed the stark, geometric form of this Design: Charles
high-backed chair to contrast boldly with Rennie Mackintosh
the white walls of the ladies’ luncheon Reissue: Cassina,
Italy
room in the Ingram Street tea room.
EARLY 1900’s
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
Armchair for the
Rennie Mackintosh’s angular furniture was
Purkersdorf
by his fellow Scots, was originally designed Sanatorium, 1902
for use in the foyer of the Purkersdorf Design: Koloman
Sanatorium of which Hoffmann was the Moser
architect. At the sanatorium, Moser’s Reissue:
armchairs were arranged in pairs around Wittmann, Austria
elegant octagonal tables.
EARLY 1900’s
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 Cabaret
total work of art”. A critic of the time described it Fledermaus Chair,
as being: “wonderful – the proportions, the light 1905-1906
atmosphere, cheerful flowing lines, elegant light Design: Josef
fixtures, comfortable chairs of new shape and, Hoffmann
finally, the whole tasteful ensemble. Genuine Reissue:
Hoffmann.” Wittmann, Austria
Dictionary
1. audacious – drošsirdīgs
2. befriended – atbalstīts
3. bentwood – liekti līmēts koks
4. conceived – iedomāts
5. cusp – ass cilnis
6. distinctive and highly refined – atšķirīgs un stipri modernizēts
7. eloquent – daiļrunīgs
8. ethos – ideāls
9. fledgling – pienapuika
10. flocked – sakrājās
11. justified – attaisnots
12. noble – cēls
13. octagonal – astoņstūru
14. rustic – vienkāršs
15. stark – pilnīgi
16. strove – cīnījās
17. struggled – centās
18. subsequent – sekojošais
19. swiftly – ātri
20. washers – starplika
Materials from
www.designmuseum.org
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