
		HOME

		Webcam and Movies

		Object of the month and Quiz

		Thonet A to Z Thonet A to Z How you date them ? Bibliography Bibliographie Kohn et Cie

		Black Forest A to Z

		STORE Thonet Black Forest Curiosities

		Exibitions

		Web links

		village saint-paul

		Guillaume Letter's

		Contact et FAQs

Thonet A to Z

Search

Introduction : Quantity by quality

A great time started, animated of a New Spirit, a spirit of construction and synthesis, led by a clear design. It is in 1920 the slogan which animated the functionalist modernistic movements and purists: to reject the past, to give new forms and attitudes in all the fields of human creation.
And yet, at this time, Corbusier, with the avant-garde of these movements brings out from the lapse of memory the chairs of the 19th century of Michael Thonet: By the elegance of the design, purity of the execution and effectiveness of the use, one nothing made forever of better.
During all its life, Corbusier draws and piece of furniture the interiors of its buildings, only with of Thonet. So much so that some think that he is the creator!
Since, the world changed face, but the great time of clear design was never carried out. On the contrary, the environment of the man was disfigured, deforms and betrayed. The quantitative criteria impregnate the immense achievements with the detriment of quality.
the massive production of current pieces of furniture of a frightening flatness, floods to it walk. By reaction, the pieces of furniture of last are revalorized. Antique dealers and merchants of copies benefit from it, exploiting the credulity of people.
In this confusion, the pieces of furniture drink Thonet curve of it, which do not have never cease to be factories, are more and more research and used. It is a single example of continuity and persistence. The purpose of this book is to show that it is possible to produce in great number while safeguarding quality. Quality: Association of art, the technique, the use and, the problem cost price of our time.

The great time of Michael Thonet, 1840-1870: its history and its work

By her genius, Michael Thonet transformed the design of the furnishing of her time, that of one middle-class in the search of her identity. This inventive cabinetmaker caused evolution of attitudes, of human behaviors, quite simply while allowing the 1ge century to differently sit down on a chair than in the past. A chair which, by its useful form, was going to adapt to realities of this time when pointed progress. Reacting against the massive piece of furniture, it knew to foresee the practical advantages of the smoothness and lightness, while meeting the fundamental need for comfort. Michael Thonet was born on July 21,1796 in Boppart in Germany. At 20 years, it creates a small company of manufacture of pieces of furniture. In 1830, it undertakes the first experimentation on the assemblies of the elements of pieces of furniture and on the possibility of curve of wood. The reputation of Mr. Thonet starts to continue thanks â the originality and to the quality of its manufacture. In 1841, it makes an unhappy loan, in order to deposit its patents in France, England and Belgium. Operation which will influence its destiny. The same year, during an exposure in Coblentz, where it presents its chairs and other achievements out of curved wood, it with the chance to meet the Chancellor of Austria, Metternich which, impressed by the innovation and the interest of its productions, invites it in Vienna, promising a great future to him. In 1842, it leaves the direction of its company which occupies a score of workmen, with his elder son Franz, and it leaves for Vienna. It successfully presents some of its innovations at the François-Joseph Emperor. The Austrian Government grants the privilege then to him to work all kinds of wood in curve by a chemical or mechanical process. During this time, it is the drama with Boppart. No patent not having been sold, its creditors confiscate the company like all the goods of the family. Ruined in Germany, Mr. THONET makes come his children to Vienna. He starts to work for the account of one manufacturing of pieces of furniture “good market named Franz List of which he will adopt the economic methods of production. There, it becomes acquainted with English architect pH. Desvignes which is in charge of the restoration of the Liechtenstein Palate. On the recommendations of this last near the contractor Carl Leistler, Thonet and his sons see themselves entrusted the manufacture of pieces of furniture and parquet floors of the palate “with all kinds of curved wood”.

In 1849, Thonet proposes an association with Leistler which refuses. It breaks the contract then and, for the second time creates its own company, after having declined the invitation of Desvignes which wanted to make it work in England. Its pieces of furniture start to have a certain notoriety. The owner of a famous coffee in Vienna, Mrs Daum, furnishs his establishment with his No4 chair. It is a great reference, the orders follow one another. It is directed then towards industrialization. The No4 chair - Daum, will be its first model of series. From 1850, the extension of the communications develops information, the contacts and the devoured ideas of liberalism.

A new form of economy, instigated by the number, professional competence and the banking speculation, causes the increase in richnesses. The industrial revolution beats its full, we attend the accelerated growth of the production in all the fields. It is the passage of the craft industry to Industry. Among the first, Mr. Thonet and his sons crossed the step.
In 1851, at the International exhibition of London, Thonet successfully presents a series of its last pieces of furniture and receives the bronze medal, its fame becomes universal.
The following year, it opens in Vienna its first subsidiary company of sale.
In 1853, it develops its installations by renting an old mill to 175 Mollardgasse, with residences and appendices, and installs its first steam engine there. 43 workmen work in the company, at this point in time it transmits its business to its five sons: Franz, Michael, August, Josef, Jacob; probably to put safe from its former creditors. The firm. Thonet Frères is created.

THONET Brothers

Actually, it will continue to direct it until its death and to make all the important decisions with the agreement of his children and the respect of its workmen.
Its participation in the international exhibitions, in particular Munich in 1854, Paris in 1855, will contribute to develop its markets and to extend them to the Latin America. the requirements of the increasing production, requiring a complete transformation of the company, Mr. Thonet undertakes at that time to increase it by adopting not very widespread rational methods of organization. In the first time, it decides to bring its place of production closer to the sites of supply raw material where it will be able to find a labour many and cheap. Its choice is made on the field of Koritschan in Moravie, near the forests of beeches which it needs. It leaves the Austrian capital, accompanied by Michael and August, leaving with his others wire the direction of the factory of Vienna, which it will close the following year to concentrate all his activities in his new installations.
There, it engages with passion in a major work of research and creation, passing without slackening of its drawing table with its bench.
In 1859, is born the famous No14 chair with an entirely round base whose production will reach several million specimens.
In 1860, Thonet designs its chief of work, the first rocking chair (N° 1), ancestor of all the rocking chairs which penetrated in the middle-class interiors of the whole world.
The factory occupies 300 workmen now and produces 200 pieces of furniture per day. But it is not sufficient to face the request.
Mr. Thonet starts the second phase of his development, primarily centered on the principle of planning and rationalization. Its goal is always the same one: industrialization, series production, reduction in price by maintaining quality.
It creates in 1861, a new factory with Bistritz, in the middle of the forest sites of Moravie where it produces in true series, its No14 chair, concentrating the manufacture of its other pieces of furniture with Korischan. It still will diversify the division of the labour by equipping Bistritz with subsidiary companies specialized in the cane-bottoming, the polishing, the varnishing and the packing which will be entrusted to peasants of the area lasting the hollow periods.
In less than five years, the development without precede by the production, again will cause a raw material shortage.
Mr. Thonet then buys a whole forest field with Nagy Ugrocz (Hungary) and there built a third factory which it will specialize in the cutting and the bending of wood, transforming Korischan and Bistritz into installations of assembly of the prétravaillés elements.
Until its death, it will build three more factories: in Hallenkau and Wsetin (Moravie). in Nowo-Radomsk (Poland Russian).
On the commercial level, Mr. Thonet still has the appearance of a precursor, by introducing the dynamics of - marketing on the market. Not only with the seat of Vienna, but in its subsidiary companies created in Budapest, Brown, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels. Paris, London and New York.
But since 1862, its irresistible rise is obscured by the death of his Anna wife, partner and adviser during 42 years. She had given him 14 children of which 7 perished in low age. Very tested, it will not continue any less with one reinforced eagerness, the work undertaken in all the fields of creation, the invention and the development.
On March 3,1871, Michael Thonet dies in full glory, surrounded by her children.
Exceptional man, exceptional career.
Which were them - spangled moments of Michael Thonet?
It was born at the good moment, meeting the favorable conditions, in one century which needed him and to which it brought its genius.
It had the chance with him. Its meeting with Metternich opened the door to him; its bankruptcy led towards more ambitious horizons; Franz List, manufacturing it of “cheap” pieces of furniture, made him discover economic science; architect pH. Desvignes enabled him to be affirmed.
Man of quality, creation of quality. Association of art and the technique, alliance of spiritual and the material.

A artist-creator; formal elegance of its designs, originality, smoothness, comfort, utility, adaptation to the taste and the mode of its time, without in being for as much prisoner.
An inventor - manufacturer: the discovery of the curve of wood, the creation of machines. One owes him also a prescience of the rational organization of the methods of industrial production for the series, the great quantities.
It is the first time that one attends constant research of saving in raw material and working time, of simplification of the assemblies by the generalized creation and the use of interchangeable parts assembled by screw or bolts, of standardization of packing (maximum of parts in a minimum of volume), of specialization by the division of the labour (distribution of the various cycles of production in the factories: cutting, bending, assembly).
Fifty years later, Henri Ford did not invent anything!
The catalogues commercial are the surest sources of the history of the industry of the pieces of furniture out of curved wooden. Very few of other documents exist to describe with safety the fantastic adventure of Mr. Thonet and his heirs.

Heirs: its sons and competitors

The such five Rotschild brothers who will reign on the empire of the bank, the five Thonet brothers will dominate the world market of the piece of furniture.
But, as of the beginning, they encounter a savage competition. The patents being expired in 1869, of new firms of manufacture of pieces of furniture appear: J.&J. Kohn, Fischel, Mundus, Eisler among most important.
These new come is satisfied in the first time, to copy purely and simply the Thonet pieces of furniture.
So much so that it is practically impossible to differentiate them: an unfair and abusive counterfeit.
Later, the competitors create also new models, generally of a doubtful taste, deteriorating and deforming the conceptional purity of the work of Thonet.
Towards the end of the century, the tastes, the fashion, the aspirations of the middle-class change. The company is treated on a hierarchical basis according to the social standing and the material situation, widening the gaps between the banker and the tradesman.
The large middle-class men are identified with the aristocrats, seek to imitate them and want to have an interior similar to that of the nobility. They claim pieces of furniture of style.
In addition, with the appearance of nationalism, a certain number of people entiche of rustic, regional and country pieces of furniture.
The influence of exoticism, resulting from colonialism, gives rise to the mode of the bamboo, cane and other “chinoiseries”.

Finally of the middle-class men - important. who do not suffer to be compared to the mass, assign supreme contempt for the piece of furniture of series. They seek personalization and rejecting the styles, want to be furnished - to measure. by great names.
It is the birth of - stardom. Indeed, a new century, twentieth, request one - Art nouveau. From where appearance of 1895 to 1905, of this - shooting star which was it. Jugendstil., It will affect the literature, the music. visual arts. architecture and naturally the piece of furniture.
In Austria, Otto Wagner at the head. Josef Hoffmann. Kolo Moser, Adolf Loss and well of others, create models to furnish their architectural achievements.
Some of these pieces of furniture are manufactured at the beginning by J.&J. Kohn under the artistic direction of Gustav Siegel.
Later, Thonet Brothers and others manufacture according to the movement, either while copying in their turn, or while taking as a starting point the the models create by new the .designers ".
It is a new family of pieces of furniture Viennese of a value indisputable, but very different from those of the last one: a revival of quality but a decline of the spirit of origin; a divorce enters creation and manufacture. That which conceives is not the same one as that which produces. Michael Thonet is not there any more!
The years pass, commercial success is enormous, but competition too. The production of pieces of furniture is directed towards the satisfaction of the easiest tastes of the customers. She sees herself proposing an incredible number of models in which old creations of Mr. Thonet are drowned. One does anything with the proviso of selling. The last catalogue Thonet (1911-1915) before the end of the First World War, illustrates this
state of affairs. They is bulkiest, appear approximately 1500 models in it, for turns the tastes and all the uses.
On the other hand, the assessment is impressive. In 1910, 52 firms produce the pieces of furniture out of wooden curved with 32000 workmen and an annual export of 22 OOO tons of pieces of furniture. But the defeat of the central Empires the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary destroy the immense company,
The Thonet factories, insulated in the new States from Central Europe, are raised and acquired their autonomy within the framework of an organization of the type - holding ". Thonet Frères joins its ex-competitors Kohn and Mundus. But the production taken again under the sign of simplicity and the economy remains limited and insipid. However, since 1925, the movements purists of the modern architecture give again fresh impulse with the creativity and the development.

The renovated firm addresses itself once again to the large high-speed motorboats: Corbusier. Crumbs Van der Rohe, Breuer, Stam. Lorenz. Azema and others. to create Thonet models out of curved metal tube.
These pieces of furniture correspond to the design even of the architecture of the moment Which rejects superfluities and the useless one, not retaining Que the functional one,
This production will be stopped by the Second World War. Defeat of the Reich Island. New fall and news taken again in 1945. New face also of the Thonet companies. nationalized in the East. independent in the West, Which carries on their road while adapting to the new conditions and whose History will retain the name.

As of the expiry of the patents of Mr. Thonet in 1869, many concurrent companies appear in Austria and in other countries.
Most important is that of J.&J. Kohn which is not satisfied to imitate the Thonet models, but creates the new ones, which, in certain cases, is of higher quality.
About 1900, when G. Siegel, becomes the Artistic Director, the Kohn Company manufactures for the first time of the pieces of furniture out of wooden curved of “designers”, allotted to Otto Wagner, J. Hoffmann, Kolo Moser and others… For the World Fairs, it presents its pieces of furniture in houses entirely of style “Art nouveau” (Paris. Philadelphia, St Louis, etc).
From the technical point of view, J.&J. Kohn introduces the square section with the sharp angles of curved wood.
In 1904, 6300 workmen produce in 4 factories 5500 parts of pieces of furniture per day.

How you date them ?

Signatures, labels and forms

History of object : Chair n°14

Watch Movie here

Update : Friday, January 02, 2009