Chairs No. 14 and No. 18
by THONET, Michael, Beech, solidly curved, wickerwork, height 89 cm
Functionally efficient, organically conceived and in many cases folding, Thonet’s chairs were a huge success. This bentwood design of model No. 14, also known as the “Viennese coffeehouse chair”, is still manufactured today and has sold about 100 million. The secret of its enduring success lies in its social as well as technical serviceability, its low production costs and its competitive price.
The picture shows chair No. 14 (right), designed by Gebr�der Thonet in 1859, and chair model No. 18 (left), designed by Gebr�der Thonet in 1875. The photo was taken at the exhibition “Bentwood, multilayered: Thonet and modern furniture design” held in 2020 in the Museum f�r angewandte Kunst, Vienna.