Thonet: Classic furniture in bent wood and tubular steel by Alexander von Vegesack

From the collection of MM Tremonto in Paris.

Thonet: Classic furniture in bent wood and tubular steel by Alexander von Vegesack

An extensive history of Thonet, one of the most influential furniture manufacturers of the modern era. Alexander von Vegesack traces the company from Michael Thonet’s experiments with bentwood in the 19th century through the radical tubular-steel furniture of the Bauhaus period and beyond.

Thonet’s deceptively simple chairs helped introduce industrial production to furniture design, making well-designed objects inexpensive, reproducible, and available on an unprecedented scale. Later collaborations and designs by figures including Marcel Breuer, Mart Stam, and Mies van der Rohe placed the company firmly at the center of European modernism.

Generously illustrated with furniture, archival photographs, drawings, advertisements, and catalog material, the book is both a history of Thonet and an excellent visual reference for bentwood and early modernist furniture.