From Thonet To MUJI
It Thinks Its People via flickr; MUJI/Thonet Chair, muji.net /Artwork: designslinger]
I'm sure these chairs look familiar to you. They've been in restaurants, cafés, and even
around residential dining room tables for generations. They are the Thonet chair No.18 which appeared on the market in 1876, and the No.14 manufactured in 1859. The No.14 is the inspiration for a chair created by the Japanese design powerhouse MUJI, for the Thonet organization, that will hit the retail market in February of 2009. (The MUJI model is the chair on the far right) The classic Thonet bentwood chair is a marvel of engineering and design, comprised of only 6 components held together by a few screws and nuts. The 150 year old chair is still manufactured by the Gebruder Thonet company, in what could be considered the most successful chair line ever created.
(Inset) Mies van der Rohe, steel tube chair, timus.jp; Marcel Breuer, steel tube chair, timus.jp /Artwork: designslinger]
MUJI will also sell a version of another classic, the Bauhaus steel tube chair of the late
1920s. The Bauhaus school was at the forefront of a modern design aesthetic that didn't separate one discipline from another. Walter Gropius and his team of architects, painters, photographers, sculptors, graphic and industrial designers, believed that all the arts were inter-related and were not mutually exclusive functioning in a vacuum. The steel tube chair was one component of their furniture program that was embraced by several of the architects associated with the school. A few of the more famous are pictured above by Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer, which gave MUJI the inspiration for their 2008 Steel Pipe Chair.
They say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Hi! I noticed you were linking to Thonet Vienna, but it is the German Thonet factory that is working together with Muji Chairs!
Thanks for the heads up and the visit!