There are only very few furniture manufacturers who can claim to have been major players in two fundamental furniture design revolutions. Thonet is one of them. And if we're honest, the only one we can currently name. Although the Thonet story begins in 1819, the story only really begins to "pick up steam" in 1859 when Michael Thonet perfected his warm wood bending process. The result of over twenty years development, heartbreak, experimentation, bankruptcy, fleeting success and brutal
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If Christmas is a time for family, then Christmas is also surely a time to buy your gifts from a family business. Currently being run by the 5th generation, Thonet have not only been responsible for the introduction and development of bent wood and steel tube furniture - two of the most important genres in the history of furniture design - but continue to support and develop young designers and so may just also discover the next big genre..... Thonet S 333 by Holger Lange Back in February
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In the past week three independent events have occurred which fuse together in one important tale. Firstly, while visiting a student flat in Dresden the (smow)boss noticed an obviously well used, but functioning chair reminiscent of the EA 107 by Charles and Ray Eames for Vitra. Despite assuming it to be a copy - student flat, Dresden, etc... - his professional curiosity got the better of him and thought he'd better check .. and Lo and Behold it was an original EA 107 by Charles and Ray
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In the next week or so we will be introducing here some of the new products from Thonet that are now available at smow.com. But before we get that far, a small video below that explains something of the story of Thonet furniture and the production process involved in bent wood and bent metal furniture. Narrated by perennial smow favourite Nils Holger Moormann. The text is currently only in German - we are however working on a translation - and so until then sit back and enjoy the pictures.
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We're just a touch late with this one, but since July 22nd the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin has been showing the exhibition "Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model". For the first time, the three German Bauhaus institutions - Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Museum für Gestaltung, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and Klassik Stiftung Weimar - are uniting to present a comprehensive Bauhaus retrospective. “Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model” recounts the story of the Bauhaus in a comprehensive presentation of the works of its
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Although the rumour persists that we only travel to trade fairs and exhibitions so that we can impress people in bars with phrases such as "Last week in New York..." or "For me the real beauty of Milan is...", in truth we do do a little work. And the fruits of that work can be seen, for example, in the ever expanding (smow)collection. And punctually to the start of The Ashes season we can now offer the extended Thonet outdoor range; quite possibly the most stylish furniture for sitting in the
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Success for Konstantin Grcic. The 43 year old German was today announced as "Category Winner: Furniture" at the Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2009 and now goes forward to the grand final. “It is tough creating a design classic, but the MYTO might just have achieved this through its rigorous experimentation and research, resulting in the technically very difficult outcome of a cantilevered plastic chair.” So commented the judges of the 2009 Brit Insurance Design of the Year award their
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In 1927 at the opening of the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, the Dutch architect and designer designer Mart Stam presented his cantilever chair; a design which went on to became globally known as the „S 43“ from Thonet. The feeling of sitting on an “elastic column of air” (Marcel Breuer) has always fascinated producers, designers and customers alike; and with its missing back legs, sparing use of material and minimalistic form the S 43 still fits wonderfully into any home or office. Mart
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