The Thonet B9 Armchair, designed by August Thonet, became popular as part of a 1920s bentwood revival, as architects the likes of Le Corbusier and Mart Stam used it in their buildings and environments. The simple and unadorned designed appealed to them, as did the "industrial" nature of the chair. Modernist designers saw it as a product of rigorous functionalism, an item whose design was determined by its material and the method used to produce it.

 

Le Corbusier used these chairs in his commissions as dining or desk seating as early as 1922, as well as in his Pavillion at the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts. Concerning his choice of chair, he wrote, "We have introduced the humble Thonet chair of steamed wood, certainly the most common of chairs...We believe this chair, whose millions of representatives are used on the Continent and in the two Americas, possesses nobility."

 

In subsequent commissions, Corbusier continued to use Thonet bentwood pieces until more suitable tubular steel chairs were produced by the company. It is also notable that in the 1927 Deutsche Werkbund exhibition (an exhibition of 33 housing units, directed by Mies Van der Rohe, and the first gathering of architects working in the new International Style) half of the 16 architects used Thonet bentwood chairs. The most popular chair? The Thonet B9 armchair.

 

Highly customizable, the B9 armchair is available in a number of seating options and finishes, including stains, lacquers, and metallic finishes.

 

Made in original European Thonet factories in Radomsko Poland, and Brno, Czech Republic.

 

A licensed reproduction.

 

Dimensions: H 32 1/2" x D 21 1/4" x W 22 1/2"; AH 28", SH 18"

 

Materials: Armchair with bentwood frame; hand woven cane seat.