Model No.14 chair
2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the model No.14 bentwood chair, also known as the ‘café' or ‘consumer chair’. Designed in 1859 by Michael Thonet (1796–1871) and still in production today the No.14 is thought to be the best-selling chair of all time.
Thonet is the Godfather of the modern chair, a pioneer of the ‘flat-pack’ principle and one of the first great figures of industrial design. His patented steam forming process for creating bentwood furniture on an industrial scale was revolutionary – as was his reduction of each piece of furniture to the minimum number of standardised and interchangeable components, and the use of screw connections to assemble them. The launch of the Thonet No.14 with its austere sculptural form heralded the basic principles of mass-production and set the agenda for subsequent 20th century design and manufacture.
The instantly recognisable double arch back of the No.14 makes it the most well-known of Thonet’s chairs. Cheap, lightweight, robust and full of charm this was a radical design that rapidly filled the cafés, bars, restaurants and concert halls of European cities. Since Thonet relinquished his patents in 1869 the No.14 has also been widely copied by many of his competitors (such as J&J Kohn of Vienna, of which some chairs exhibited in the Boutique Printemps Design au Centre Pompidou are examples). By 1930 the Thonet company alone had sold 50 million of them. Today they are still popular in public and domestic spaces in Paris and throughout the world.
Replacement seats
The beech frames of bentwood chairs are very durable, and their screw connections allow them to be simply tightened up when necessary, the seats however – either caned or made from formed plywood – are the weakest element and may require several replacements during the chair’s long lives. Indeed, the Thonet Project was initiated as a result of a commission to create a third set of replacement seats for six old Thonet bentwood chairs that had belonged to the parents of graphic designer, Peter Brawne for over 50 years. He wanted to put them back into use around his kitchen table:
‘The chairs had been in my family since 1957 after my parents bought them from a junk shop in London’s Portobello Road. Over the years we replaced the seats, at first with third-party dished plywood ones sold at a local hardware shop, then more recently, with DIY flat bits of plywood which were an inadequate and uncomfortable solution. For the last ten years or so they collected dust whilst awaiting their next resurrection, but replacement seats for these models are hard to come by. Amos came to me in need of some graphic design, and we agreed to barter services: I’d do some graphic design for him and he’d solve the problem of creating some new seats for these chairs.’
But this proposal, born out of a practical need, was also seen as a potentially rich design/making opportunity by a group of up-and-coming designers. The commission led to recent design graduates Amos Field Reid, Steve Clutton, Jess Corteen, Markus Kayser and Rentaro Nishimura forming a group alongside their lecturer, the designer William Warren – this became W.C.Franck — which set out to explore replacement seat proposals for bentwood chairs. The underlying thinking was that with millions of these chairs in existence there were undoubtedly a great many out of service simply because their seats were missing. Producing pragmatic proposals for third-party replacement seats for these timeless chairs was one outcome, but the confrontation with the voids in these iconic frames also presented other more expressive opportunities.
It is hoped that the Thonet Project will inspire other owners of old bentwood chairs to get these proto-modern masterpieces out of their attics and basements and back into use.
Amos Field Reid
The following illustrates and explains the thinking behind the six seat solutions from the six designers:
Download PDF of Le Projet Thonet poster/information sheet (A3 printer necessary if print-out required)
Gift No. 2 Starting from Marcel Mauss’ premise that relationships are built on gift debts, we have created a seat that contains a gift appropriate to the Viennese coffee culture of the ultimate café chair, the No.14.
The saucer and cup will be separated by the act of giving, but the subtle depression in the seat and the wooden handle of the cup ensure that the two objects remain in constant dialogue, always part of a single whole.
Offering the cup (as a gift) is therefore the symbolic equivalent of offering a permanent place at your table. This is a powerful expression of friendship, but it’s also a Trojan horse; the cup will take up residence in the recipient’s home, thus giving you a ‘seat’ at their table. Gifts, debt, relationship, or just sharing coffee – reading Mauss one discovers there is love in reciprocity.
Checkers The No.14 design with it’s defining motif of the double arch back-rest has been reproduced in chairs of varying sizes and proportions ever since it’s development in 1859. This elongated version presents its little perch-like seat at stool height or about that of a side-table.
The drilled holes arranged in a star-shaped pattern often found in replacement plywood seats on bentwood chairs made me think of board-games like solitaire and Chinese checkers (surprisingly a game of German origins like Thonet). These associations: game board, plywood seat and the the unusual height of this No.14 led to the star pattern Checkers board-seat.
Playing the game also results in a kind of worship of the No.14, as the Checkers seat takes centre stage, with its double arch back elevated above the reverential circle of players surrounding it. When the game is over the pieces are stored in the hidden compartment under the board and the chair is ready for sitting on again.
Drum Without their seats these elegant and lightweight bentwoods are more sculpture than chair. In filling the void where the seat used to be we are putting these everyday sculptures back into use. The challenge was to find a balance between pragmatic restoration and sympathetic innovation.
The tensioned Drum seat features an interpretation of the pattern that once adorned many of the Thonet plywood seats, is high on comfort, low in weight and can be fitted without tools. As a simple organic material that lasts and ages well, leather seemed a match for the chairs aged beech limbs, whilst the strapping shares the bolt-it-together pragmatism typical of Thonet’s constructions.
This piece was produced in collaboration with leather craftsman Justin Parker.
Mirror The Mirror seat maximises the sculptural presence of the chair’s bentwood structure whilst simultaneously projecting the contemporary on to this familiar old form.
A mirrored seat appeals to me because it seems to disappear and my feeling was that such an iconic chair did not require a new æsthetic but rather a continuation of its own. But a hard flat surface is just not very comfy so I chose to make the mirror concave like the original Thonet ply seats. As a one-off this was most efficiently achieved by spinning a seat in brass, plating it with nickel and polishing it up.
When not in use the seat becomes a sculptural element of its environment and when sat upon it’s just a nice chair!
Fold No.2 Paper is one of the most common materials in our lives. By simply folding it, this thin, lightweight and fragile material can be transformed into a three-dimensional form with great structural strength.
The design of Fold No.2 was developed through a series of CAD drawings and physical testing using folded paper models. The sheer number of folds and their arrangement is such that they distribute the load evenly across the structure and make it possible to achieve a seat made from a sheet of paper that supports the weight of a person.
The Fold No.2 seat became durable enough to withstand daily domestic use by using a synthetic paper which is both water resistant and more durable than standard paper. The series of creases also creates a geometrical pattern of light and shadow that answers the challenge of designing a seat which works not just structurally but aesthetically too.
Siren No.2 What gift can I offer to this lovely No.14 chair on its 150th birthday? What do you give a chair that has everything: beauty, ingenious manufacture and a long history of satisfied bottoms.
I have tried to give this chair a new experience for those it sits. This No.14 is a child’s chair and the experience I’ve added is light-hearted and fun.
The noise of furniture is an overlooked aspect of its character. All objects have their own noise: the sound of their material or function. Think of the difference between a glass jug and a plastic one or the closing of a well-hung door. I believe the sound of things to be of equal importance to the styling they are given.
Adding unexpected noises to things can give their personality more richness and improve our interaction with them. We no longer simply use things, we can experience them.
The work exhibited in Paris, above, develops themes begun at Designersblock, London, illustrated below:
Journey We live in an era where furniture comes as flatpack from Ikea, is lived with for a few years – at best – then thrown away. The short lifespan and throwaway aesthetic of these cheap products denies us the chance to form emotional attachments with our furniture. Thonet’s pioneering manufacturing processes were the precursor to contemporary mass-production in furniture, yet these chairs are beautiful, long lasting objects which can become imbued with sentimental value as we live with them.
When we come into contact with old, used furniture we sense the stories behind them, yet cannot ‘read’ them without more information.
With Journey, the DMS (Degree, Minute, Second) co-ordinates of all the known locations where this chair has ‘lived’ have been laser-etched onto the surface of a new plywood seat, creating a graphic narrative of its journey over the last 50–130 years. Though recognisable as co-ordinates they are presented as decorative pattern. But armed with an atlas, the outline of the chairs story can be discovered. Additionally, the graphic nature of this solution also seemed appropriate when the commission was for a graphic designer.
‘A fixed chair can be worth more than one that has not been broken.’
– William Warren
Siren No.1 The brief for this project has two aims. The first is to develop an object that highlights an aspect of my design thinking in an exhibition; the second, and arguably more important is simply to ‘fix’ the chairs so that they can once again be put to daily use in a family home.
I chose to look for a simple and subtle intervention that added a twist to the experience of using the chair without messing with its primary function: being a seat.
The Siren seat is admittedly a fairly basic bit of slapstick. My fear is that this light-heartedness may disqualify it from also being a relatively serious response. It’s funny – yes – but what’s wrong with that? It’s an experience rather than a cosmetic re-style. A chance to interact, to know and eventually to love the seat.
This is a one-off object. One of six seats that will all be quite different and have their own stories, fitted into six fantastic iconic chairs that are already full of sentimental value for one family to use. It’s a conversation waiting to happen.
