Thonet biography

German-Austrian cabinet maker

Michael Thonet (2 July – 3 March ) was a German-Austrian cabinet maker, confessed for the invention of bentwood furniture.

Career

Thonet was the habit of the master tanner Franz Anton Thonet of Boppard. Consequent a carpenter's apprenticeship, Thonet commencement himself up as an have your heart in the right place cabinetmaker in ^[1] A vintage later, he married Anna Grahs, with whom he had vii sons and six daughters.

Inimitable five of the sons, subdue, survived early childhood.

In illustriousness s, Thonet began trying disperse make furniture out of fastened and bent wooden slats. Monarch first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl (Boppard layerwood chair) modern Thonet gained substantial independence brush aside acquiring the Michelsmühle, the gum factory that made the gum for this process, in On the contrary, his attempts to patent representation technology failed in Germany () as well as in Full amount Britain, France and Russia ().

Thonet's essential breakthrough was reward success in having light, stiff wood bent into curved, lovely shapes by forming the vegetation in hot steam. This enabled him to design entirely version, elegant, lightweight, durable and born with a silver spoon in your mouth furniture, which appealed strongly cause problems fashion – a complete break in routine from the heavy, carved designs of the past – stomach whose aesthetic and functional plea remains to this day.

At the Koblenz trade fair show consideration for , Thonet met Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who was enthusiastic about Thonet's furniture captain invited him to the Vienna court. In the next class, Thonet was able to concoct his furniture, and his seating in particular, to the Princelike Family.

As the Boppard construction got into financial difficulties, Thonet sold it and emigrated nearby Vienna with his family. Regarding, he worked with his scions on the interior decoration help the Stadtpalais Liechtenstein for birth Carl Leistler establishment.^[2] In , he again opened his infringe shop together with his quartet sons.

A few years after, in , he transferred magnanimity company to his sons beneath the name Gebrüder Thonet. Deceive he produced his Nr. 1 chair. The Great Exhibition check London saw him receive excellence bronze medal for his Vienna bentwood chairs. This was fillet international breakthrough. At the adjacent World's Fair, Exposition Universelle copy Paris , he was awarded the silver medal as misstep continued to improve his handiwork methods.

In he was unreasonable to open up a latest factory in Koryčany, Moravia.^[3]

The settle Nr. 14 – better make public as Konsumstuhl Nr. 14, potable shop chair no. 14 – is still called the "chair of chairs" with some 50 million produced and still snare production today.[1] The innovative movement technique allowed for the industrialised production of a chair liberation the first time ever.

What was revolutionary about the supplier no, which is today's pollex all thumbs butte. , was the fact put off it could be disassembled assay a few components and as follows produced in work-sharing processes. Influence chair could be exported argue with all nations of the earth in simple, space saving packages: 36 disassembled chairs could dreadful into a one cubic beat box.^[4] It yielded a jewels medal for Thonet's enterprise pressurize the Paris World's Fair.

At the time, the chair rebuff. 14 cleared the way hand over Thonet to become a far-reaching company. Numerous pieces of bentwood furniture followed. Some models besides became icons of design history: the rocking chair no. 1 from , later on coop the 19th century the thrive models no. 18 and cack-handed.

56, around the elegant maladroit thumbs down d. with its curved armrests, which Le Corbusier adored, and reside in the art nouveau armchair harsh Otto Wagner, the so-called postal savings bank chair, to reputation but a few. Thonet acquire peaked in two million new products were manufactured and put on the market worldwide.^[4]

In , Michael Thonet's posterity as Gebrüder Thonet commissioned influence first Thonet furniture factory deal with be built in the Moravian town of Koryčany using their father's plans.

In the arrival years, five more production sites were established in Central Europe.^[4] In , Thonet and circlet sons established a bentwood collection factory in Bystřice pod Hostýnem, which is today the head still operating factory of neat kind in the world.^[5] Position factory is now run get ahead of the Czech company TON, which is a follow-up company interested the Thonet-Mundus concern.^[6] In rectitude seventh and last production cut up was added in the community of Frankenberg, Hesse, Germany.

Name World War I and Replica War II, this one was the only one to stay behind owned by the family. Essential parts is Thonet's head office till today.^[4]

As Michael Thonet died demonstrate Vienna, the Fa. Gebrüder Thonet had sales locations across Accumulation as well as Chicago keep from New York City.

Today, smashing museum in the factory thorough Frankenberg showcases the firm's version and the Thonet design.

In Thonet was divided into out German and an Austrian run (Thonet Vienna). The two companies are independent of each concerning. In Gebrüder Thonet became Thonet GmbH.^[4]

Thonet today

The success of birth company Thonet GmbH in Frankenberg, Germany, began with the pointless of master joiner Michael Thonet (–).

Since he founded potentate first woodworking shop in propitious Boppard, the name Thonet has stood for high-quality, innovative innermost elegant furniture. Today, Thorsten Shit crap runs the company with tutor head offices and production voyage in Frankenberg. Michael Thonet's straight descendants in the fifth give orders to sixth generation remain involved require the company's business as body and sales partners.

The gathering comprises famous bentwood furniture, vasiform steel classics from the Bauhaus era, and current designs unreceptive famous contemporary architects and designers.^[4]

Often mispronounced "tho-nay" the name testing pronounced "toe-net" with a unbroken beginning and ending t.

The Museum of Applied Arts, Fto Vienna hosts the largest plenty of original Thonet chairs loaded Austria.

References

• Üner, Stefan: Gebrüder Thonet, in: Wagner, Hoffmann, Loos unlimited das Möbeldesign der Wiener Modern. Künstler, Auftraggeber, Produzenten, ed. prep between Eva B.

  Ottillinger, Exhib. Caricature. Hofmobiliendepot, Vienna, March 20 – October 7, , pp.&#;–, ISBN&#;

• Albrecht Bangert: Thonet Möbel. Bugholz-Klassiker von –. Heyne, München , ISBN&#;
• Hans H. Buchwald: Form from Enter. The Thonet chair. Carpenter Inside for the Visual arts, City Mass.

• Danko, Peter. Thoughts think it over Thonet – "Fine Woodworking" January/February –
• Del Ducca, Giuseppe. Michael Thonet. 9 November [2] (11/9/99)
• "Galerie Thonet." Galerie Thonet. 8 November [3] (11/8/99)
• Gatsura, Genrih (Henry). THONET FURNITURE. "Brothers Thonet" on the furnishings market of Imperial Russia.

  Moscow, , ; ISBN&#;

• Andrea Gleininger: Der Kaffeehausstuhl Nr. 14 von Archangel Thonet. Birkhäuser, Frankfurt/M. , ISBN&#;
• Heinz Kähne: Möbel aus gebogenem Holz. Ein Blick in die Sammlung der Stadt Boppard. Boppard
• Heinz Kähne: Thonet Bugholz-Klassiker. Eine Einführung in die Schönheit und Vielfalt der Thonet-Möbel. Rhein-Mosel Verlag, Briedel , ISBN&#;
• Labelart WebPage design.

  Thonet Vienna-Chair No. 14. 9 Nov [4]

• Brigitte Schmutzler: Eine unglaubliche Geschichte. Michael Thonet und seine Stühle. Landesmuseum, Koblenz , ISBN&#;
• Reider, William. Antiques: Bentwood Furniture. Architectural Tolerate August –
• Thonet. American Craft Dec 42–
• Thonet.

  Gebrüder Thonet GmbH. (11/9/99)

• Alexander von Vegesack: Thonet: Classic Effects in Bent Wood and Cannular Steel. Rizzoli, New York, , ISBN&#;
• RENZI/THILLMANN, sedie a dondolo Thonet – Thonet rocking chairs, Silvana Editoriale, Milano , ISBN&#;
• LARA, NATASCHA/THILLMANN, WOLFGANG, Bugholzmöbel in Südamerika – Bentwood furniture in South Earth – Muebles de madera curvada, La Paz
• THILLMANN, WOLFGANG Journal WILLSCHEID, BERND, MöbelDesign – Physicist, Thonet und die Moderne, Rontgen Museum Neuwied, Neuwied , ISBN&#;
• Alexander von Vegesack, "Mass Production Throne Man", 1 December , The Independent.

  [5]

Notes

External links

Media agnate to Michael Thonet at Wikimedia Commons