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The Wassily Chair
Legend has it that Marcel Breuer’s Wassily Chair was named for Wassily Kandinsky, the 20th Century artist known as the father of abstract painting. In this case, however, the legend is wrong.
While Breuer and Kandinsky were colleagues at the Bauhaus, Breuer’s inspiration came not from his fine artist friend, but from the tubular-steel handlebars of the Adler bicycle he used to get around town. He admired the graceful curves of the metal, and turned to them for inspiration when creating what is believed to be the first tubular steel chair.
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Black Full Grain Italian Leather £343.00 (inc VAT) In stock, delivery in 3 - 5 working days |
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Tan Full Grain Italian Leather £343.00 (inc VAT) Available to order, delivery in 6 – 8 weeks |
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White Full Grain Italian Leather £343.00 (inc VAT) Available to order, delivery in 6 – 8 weeks |
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Brown Full Grain Italian Leather £343.00 (inc VAT) Available to order, delivery in 6 – 8 weeks |
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Cream Full Grain Italian Leather £343.00 (inc VAT) Available to order, delivery in 6 – 8 weeks |
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Marcel Breuer
Inspired by the strength and elegance of his bicycle handlebars, budding designer Marcel Breuer approached a local bike factory manager with an idea for developing and manufacturing furniture using tubular steel. The factory manager politely dismissed him.
His reason? “It has never been done”.
Read the full profileThe Full Story
Breuer combined the gleaming, bent chrome steel frame, comprised of a series of strong, spare lines, with thick leather slings used for the seat, back and armrests. He christened the finished product the Model B3 – a somewhat unimaginative, if functional, name. It was then that Wassily Kandinsky noticed and admired the chair, and Breuer designed another specifically for his friend. Thus the Wassily Chair – and the legend surrounding it – was born.
Breuer designed the Wassily chair in the mid 1920’s, while he served as head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus. The groundbreaking design was only made possible by a recent advance in German steel manufacturing that allowed for the production of seamless steel tubing. Tubing that had a seam could not be bent – it would collapse. But this new, seamless steel opened up an entire new world of design possibilities that Breuer and his colleagues eagerly explored.
More than 80 years after its creation, the first chair ever fashioned from bent steel tubing remains as fresh, modern and desirable as when it was first introduced. With its clean lines and elegant construction, The Wassily Chair is a work of functional art truly worthy of its illustrious name… even if the way it got that name has been misrepresented for decades.
Regardless, Kandinsky would likely be proud that his friend’s creation reigns as a modernist design icon today.
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