The No. 14 chair is the most famous chair made by the

Thonet Thonet is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Anne Bonnet, née Thonet (1908–1960), Belgian painter * Michael Thonet (1796–1871), German–Austrian cabinet maker ** Gebrüder Thonet Gebrüder Thonet or the Thonet Brothers w ...

chair company. Also known as the 'bistro chair', it was designed by

Michael Thonet Michael Thonet (2 July 1796, Boppard – 3 March 1871, Vienna) was a German-Austrian cabinet maker, known for the invention of bentwood furniture. Career Thonet was the son of the master tanner Franz Anton Thonet of Boppard. Following a ca ...

and introduced in 1859, becoming the world's first mass-produced item of furniture. It is made using bent wood (steam-bending), and the design required years to perfect. With its affordable price and simple design, it became one of the best-selling chairs ever made. Some 50 million No. 14s were sold between 1859 and 1930, and millions more have been sold since. Thonet's No. 14 was made of six pieces of steam-bent wood, ten screws, and two nuts. The wooden parts were made by heating beechwood slats to , pressing them into curved cast-iron moulds, and then drying them at around for 20 hours. The chairs could be mass-produced by unskilled workers and disassembled to save space during transportation. Later chairs, as illustrated here, were made of eight pieces of wood: two diagonal braces were added between the seat and back, to strengthen this hard-worked joint. The design was a response to a requirement for cafe-style chairs. The seat was often made of woven cane or palm, because the holes in the seat would let spilt liquid drain off the chair. Chair No 14 is still produced by

Gebrüder Thonet Gebrüder Thonet or the Thonet Brothers was a European furniture manufacturer. It continues as a German company (Thonet GmbH), Austrian (Thonet Vienna) and Czech (TON). History Gebrüder Thonet were particularly known for their manufacture of b ...

Vienna. Ton, and by Thonet (as 214).

Design classic

The No. 14 chair is widely regarded as a design classic. It earned a gold medal when it was shown at the 1867 World Exposition in Paris. It has been praised by many designers and architects, including Le Corbusier, who said "Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created."

Redesign

Nordisches Museum Möbel-Lundgren-ÖGLA DSC6446

As the original design is now in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

, there have been many new versions. In 1961, a plastic version was made by IKEA. In 2009, the chair was redesigned by James Irvine, an English designer, and retailed from

Muji (), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...

, a Japanese company. Roland Ohnacker, managing director of Thonet, stated that the aim was "to help 18 to 35 year-olds enter the Thonet brand world."

References

{{commonscat, Thonet Chair No. 14 Chairs Individual models of furniture Flatpack furniture