Chairs, Chair Design and Chair Designers
This Thonet Rocking Lounger will be auctioned in a couple of hours at Wright. Estimate: $4,000 @ $5,000.
Update 1:
and sold for $3,500
Update 2:
Rather it is a J&J Kohn Rocking Lounger
Last edited by Guido J. van den Elshout on November 18, 2011 at 10:49 PM
Amos Field Reid pointed me to the Thonet no. 14 project where 6 young UK based designers marked the 150th anniversary of the Thonet no. 14 in 2009 by replacing only the seats. More can be read on WC Frank’s site.
The challenge was to find a balance between pragmatic restoration and sympathetic innovation.
The tensioned Drum seat features an interpretation of the pattern that once adorned many of the Thonet plywood seats, is high on comfort, low in weight and can be fitted without tools. As a simple Âorganic material that lasts and ages well, leather seemed a match for the chairs aged beech limbs, whilst the strapping shares the bolt-it-together pragmatism typical of Thonet’s constructions.
This piece was produced in collaboration with leather craftsman Justin Parker.
Die Zeit Armchair by Otto Wagner is another chair in the important Wiener Werkstätte auction in NYC coming March 3, 2011:
OTTO WAGNER
Rare armchair, for the dispatch bureau of Die Zeit, Vienna, ca. 1902
Beechwood, nickel-plated metal, aluminum, cord, fabric. 30 3/4 in. (78.1 cm.) high Produced by Jacob & Josef Kohn, Austria. Underside stamped with “J. & J. Kohn/Teschen Austria.â€
ESTIMATE $35,000-45,000
via Phillips de Pury & Company.
My view: It seems very similar to the Postsparkasse chair….and already Art Deco.
See for instance the one that was auctioned, but probably held up at Wright in 2006:
According to Wright made by:
Thonet
Austria, 1906
stained beech wood, aluminum, upholstery
21.75 w x 23.25 d x 31 h inchesVienna’s Postparkasse, or Post Office Savings Bank, is Otto Wagner’s most important public commission and a landmark of modern architecture. This project illustrates Wagner’s pioneering use of aluminum as a new and modern material in architecture and design. Produced in a small series exclusively for the board room of the Post Office Savings Bank, this armchair utilizes aluminum both as a durable material for everyday use, and as a detail that fuses the design with overall architectural concept. Signed with manufacturer’s paper label to underside: [Thonet Wien] and stamped: [Thonet].
In 2008 a similar chair fetched $16,250 at Christie’s in a NYC sale.
In London at Christies there was not much interest in two leather upholstered ones in 2007 ($2,559) See Lot.
In 2000 at Christie’s (again NYC) this ebonized with aluminum one fetched $35,250.
Cord versus upholstery vs leather? Thonet vs J&J Kohn – who, mind you, later acquired the certain parts of the Thonet portfolio? New World loving this chair more than the Old World? Many questions…
Curious what this one will fetch in NYC.
Katowice, Poland, based designer Piotr Pacalowski drew my attention with his Thonet Echoes Chair.
I was reasonably late to show you this Thonet no 14 interpretation by James Irvine which Muji started to sell in 2009 already. Therefore I’m glad I found it in front of my camera at IMM Cologne 2011 to publish it here. Especially because there are more recent reinterpretations of the no 14, like the Österlen by Inga Sempé, the Sealed Armchair by Francois Dumas and the Vigna Chair by Martino Gamper.