
The Thonet Chair

in Pamplona, Spain (1925)
Source: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Michael Thonet, a German cabinetmaker, designed the No. 14 chair at a time when both design aesthetics and the role of the bistro were evolving.


Source: Art Institute of Chicago
What made Thonet’s design revolutionary was his newly discovered wood-bending technique, which required steaming solid wood pieces for many hours and reinforcing the curved shape with cast iron molds.
Thonet’s technique reduced the No.14’s parts to six pieces of wood, ten screws and two bolts, standardizing its shape and decreasing time and cost of production.

Source: Thonet GmbH
"Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created."
-Le Corbusier, 1925

"An excellent application of a happy thought…"
-juror, the London Exhibition of 1862

Source: Thonet GmbH
Simple assemblage allowed the chair to be shipped
as individual parts, making the No. 14 chair the first flat-pack chair in history.
With ease of shipment, 50 million No.14 chairs were sold to bistros around the world between 1890 and 1930 alone.

Photograph by Arnold Newman (1956)
Source: Arnold Newman, represented by Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Source: Martha Rosler, represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery, New York

Photograph by Alexandre Georges
Source: The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York