NO.14 THONET 1890-1910
An early example of Thonet’s most famous chair, restored and re-caned so it can continue its journey into its second century.
No.14 was the most simple chair out of the initial 14 launched in Thonet’s first catalogue of 1859. Using the newly patented technique of bending solid wood it was made of 6 pieces: a caned seat, 2 front legs, leg brace, back insert and a single piece for the rear legs and back. The chair was shipped flat-packed, 36 to a square meter and was assembled on site with 10 screws and 2 washers ( also manufactured by Thonet). Siegfried Giedion the architecture critic described the No.14 as “form purified by serial production”. Commonly known as the Vienna Chair, due to its proliferation of the cafe’s in the Austrian capital, Thonet also referred to as Konsum Stuhl (consumers chair) because it was readily available to the newly formed middle classes costing “the equivalent of 3 dozen eggs” ( Ostergard, Bent Wood ). The Vienna Chair was exhibited at London 1862 and Paris 1867 Worlds Fairs and Le Corbusier used them in his 1925 Pavillon de l’Esprit at the Exposition des Arts Decoratif, “We have introduced the humble Thonet chair of steamed wood, certainly the most common as well as the least costly of chairs. And we believe that this chair, whose millions of representatives are used on the Continent and in the two Americas, possesses nobility”. The patent ran out for the No.14 in 1880 and other firms from the Habsberg Empire were quick to copy and list it in their own catalogues carrying over the same name of Vienna Chair. By 1900 it had been produced over 40 million times.
