Wassily Chair

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Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer
Wassily chairs in the Bauhaus of Dessau
The Wassily Chair, also known as the Model B3 chair, was designed by Marcel
Breuer in 1925-1926 while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the
Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany. Despite popular belief, the chair was not designed
for the non-objective painter Wassily Kandinsky, who was concurrently on the
Bauhaus faculty. However, Kandinsky had admired the completed design, and Breuer
fabricated a duplicate for Kandinsky's personal quarters. The chair became known
as "Wassily" decades later, when it was re-released by an Italian manufacturer
named Gavina who had learned of the anecdotal Kandinsky connection in the course
of its research on the chair's origins.
History[edit]
The chair later known as the "Wassily" was first manufactured in the late 1920s
by Thonet, the German-Austrian furniture manufacturer most known for its bent-wo
od
chair designs, under the name Model B3. It was first available in both a folding
and a non-folding versions. In this early iteration, the straps were made of
fabric, pulled taut on the reverse side with the use of springs. Black and white
fabric were available, as well as a popular wire-mesh fabric version. The Thonet
produced version of the chair is most rare, and went out of production during
World War II.
Most of Breuer's early designs were produced under license by the Berlin based
manufacturer, Standard-Mbel, Lengyel & Company. The Wassily chair was the only
significant early Breuer design not offered by Standard-Mbel, Lengyel & Co.
After the War years, Gavina picked up the license for the Wassily, along with
the Breuer designs previously sold by Standard-Mbel, Lengyel & Co., and
introduced the more recognized Wassily version that replaced the fabric with
black leather straps, though the fabric version was still made available. In
1968 Knoll bought the Gavina Group of Bologna. This brought all of Breuer's
design into the Knoll catalog.
This chair was revolutionary in the use of the materials (bent tubular steel and
canvas) and methods of manufacturing. It is said that the handlebar of Breuer's
'Adler' bicycle inspired him to use steel tubing to build the chair, and it
proved to be an appropriate material because it was available in quantity. The
design (and all subsequent steel tubing furniture) was technologically feasible
only because the German steel manufacturer Mannesmann had recently perfected a

process for making seamless steel tubing. Previously, steel tubing had a welded
seam, which would collapse when the tubing was bent.
The Wassily chair, like many other designs of the modernist movement, has been
mass-produced since the late 1920s, and continuously in production since the
1950s. A design classic is still available today. Though patent designs are
expired, the trademark name rights to the design are owned by Knoll of New York
City. Reproductions are produced around the world by other manufacturers, who
market the product under different names.
See also[edit]
Adirondack chair
Aeron chair
Barcelona chair
Curule chair
Faldstool
Glastonbury chair
Grand Confort
List of chairs
Turned chair
Watchman's chair
X-chair
References[edit]
[hide] v t e Knoll
People Florence Knoll Hans Knoll
Products Barcelona chair Hardoy chair Tulip chair Wassily Chair
Categories: ChairsWassily KandinskyMarcel Breuer buildings
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