Tubular Times

Marcel Breuer is a designer who can be given the accolade of leading a modernist tubular furniture revolution that dominated 1920/30's design. 

In 1925 he produced this chair, Club Chair (middle).  Drawing on a the designs of the De Stijl furniture by Rietveld but also really taking into account the shape and space of a regular club chair.




Its radical enough for us to look at the leather version in 2014 and see that the other two are seriously cutting edge, but this was 1925 for christ sake!  Really it was a post war period when designers could take advantage of new manmade materials and production techniques.

From then on everyone was at it.  Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Mart Stam, Charlotte Perriand and Anton Lorenze for Thonet.


There was a bit of a legal scuffle when it came to who was responsible for the cantilever design.  A chair with no back legs and one continuous line.  Though Marcel Breuer insisted that he was responsible for this design, it is widely reported that Mart Stam first came up with the idea after making a prototype chair with gas pipes.


Whoever is responsible, it's bloody lovely chair and we're lucky enough to have a Thonet version designed by Anton Lorenze in at the moment.



As well as some other modernist inspired tubular furniture.