Gebrüder Thonet

Gebrüder Thonet, or the Thonet Brothers, was a European furniture manufacturer. Three firms descended from the original company remain active today: Thonet GmbH in Germany, Thonet Vienna in Austria, and TON in the Czech Republic.

History

Gebrüder Thonet became especially known for its manufacture of bentwood furniture, for which it developed the first industrial-scale production processes. Bentwood furniture is the process of bending wood into curves whilst it is wet and pliable. The new methods replaced traditional craft skills in favor of machinery which enabled workers to produce accurate and repeatable bent components. Although steam bending had long been used for furniture such as Windsor chairs, these earlier techniques involved bending raw billets of wood that were later shaped to size. Thonet’s process, by contrast, allowed timber to be machined to a finished surface as dowel stock, steam-bent into shape, and used almost immediately as a component, requiring only trimming at the ends.[1]

The company was founded by Michael Thonet in Vienna. In 1853, he transferred ownership of his firm to his sons under the new name Gebrüder Thonet. In 1856 the brothers expanded by opening a factory in Koryčany. Over the following decades, five further production sites were established in Central Europe: Bystřice pod Hostýnem in 1861, Veľké Uherce in 1866, Vsetín in 1867, Halenkov in 1867, and Radomsko in 1880.[2]

The company’s best-known design is the No. 14 chair, the iconic café chair of Paris. Designer Jasper Morrison described it as “refined to the point where there is no way to improve it.”[3]

In 1921, Gebrüder Thonet merged with Mundus AG, becoming the world’s largest furniture manufacturer. In 1938, the Thonet family bought back shares in the company.[2]

After World War II, Thonet lost all production facilities in Eastern Bloc states through expropriation. Additionally, its sales office at Vienna’s Stephansplatz was destroyed. From 1945 to 1953, Georg Thonet, great-grandson of the founder, rebuilt new facilities in Frankenberg, Hesse, where Thonet GmbH remains headquartered today. Economic recovery came quickly, and the firm collaborated with leading designers. Over the following decades, collaborators included Egon Eiermann, Verner Panton, Pierre Paulin, Norman Foster, James Irvine, Piero Lissoni, Stefan Diez, Hadi Teherani, among others. The company’s in-house design team continues to add new pieces to its portfolio.[2]

In 1976, Gebrüder Thonet was divided into a German company (Gebrüder Thonet) and an Austrian company (Thonet Vienna). The two firms remain independent of each other.[2]

Thonet today

In 2006, Gebrüder Thonet became Thonet GmbH. The company is currently managed by Thorsten Muck at its headquarters in Frankenberg/Eder, Germany. Michael Thonet’s descendants in the fifth and sixth generations remain involved as associates and sales partners. The company’s collection includes bentwood furniture, tubular steel classics from the Bauhaus era, as well as contemporary designs by internationally known architects and designers.[2]

Museums and exhibitions

In 1989, Thonet opened a museum on its company premises in Frankenberg, with 700 square metres of exhibition space showcasing historical pieces.

The Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (MAK) houses a large collection of Thonet furniture. Its permanent exhibition presents 100 years of Thonet production, as well as work by the Kohn brothers and the Danhauser furniture factory. The Imperial Furniture Collection in Vienna also displays selected Thonet objects, including the Michael Thonet “running chair” from 1843–1848, made for the Stadtpalais Liechtenstein palace.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the company, the MAK presented a major exhibition of Thonet designs from December 2019 to September 2020, featuring items from its permanent collection.[4]

Bibliography

• Renzi/Thillmann, sedie a dondolo Thonet – Thonet rocking chairs, Silvana Editoriale, Milano 2006, ISBN 978-88-366-0671-9
• Lara, Natascha/Thillmann, Wolfgang, Bugholzmöbel in Südamerika – Bentwood furniture in South America – Muebles de madera curvada, La Paz 2008
• Thillmann, Wolfgang/ Willscheid, Bernd, MöbelDesign – Roentgen, Thonet und die Moderne, Roentgen Museum Neuwied, Neuwied 2011, ISBN 978-3-9809797-9-5
• Official Website of Thonet GmbH: http://www.thonet.de
• Basic press portfolio of Thonet GmbH

Types

Literature

• Üner, Stefan: Gebrüder Thonet, in: Wagner, Hoffmann, Loos und das Möbeldesign der Wiener Moderne. Künstler, Auftraggeber, Produzenten, ed. by Eva B. Ottillinger, Exhib. Cat. Hofmobiliendepot, Vienna, 20 March – 7 October 2018, p. 149–152, ISBN 978-3-205-20786-3.
• Albrecht Bangert: Thonet Möbel. Bugholz-Klassiker von 1830 bis 1930. Heyne, München 1997, ISBN 3-453-13047-2. * Hans H. Buchwald: Form from Process. The Thonet chair. Carpenter Center for the Visual arts, Cambridge Mass. 1967.
• Reinhard Engel, Marta Halpert: Luxus aus Wien II. Czernin Verlag, Wien 2002, ISBN 3-7076-0142-0.
• Andrea Gleininger: Der Kaffeehausstuhl Nr. 14 von Michael Thonet. Birkhäuser, Frankfurt/M. 1998, ISBN 3-7643-6832-2.
• Heinz Kähne: Möbel aus gebogenem Holz. Ein Blick in die Sammlung der Stadt Boppard. Boppard 2000. * Heinz Kähne: Thonet Bugholz-Klassiker. Eine Einführung in die Schönheit und Vielfalt der Thonet-Möbel. Rhein-Mosel Verlag, Briedel 1999, ISBN 3-929745-70-4.
• Heinz Kähne: Die Thonets in Boppard. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-86680-368-8.
• Brigitte Schmutzler: Eine unglaubliche Geschichte. Michael Thonet und seine Stühle. Landesmuseum, Koblenz 1996, ISBN 3-925915-55-9.
• Sembach, Leuthäuser, Gössel: Möbeldesign im 19. Jahrhundert, Benedikt Taschen GmbH, Köln 1990, ISBN 3-8228-0365-0. * Eva B. Ottilinger (Hrsg.): Gebrüder Thonet- Möbel aus gebogenem Holz, Böhlau Verlag, Wien Köln Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-205-77102-8.
• Renz, Wolfgang Thillmann, sedie a dondolo Thonet – Thonet rocking chairs, Silvana Editoriale, Milano 2006, ISBN 88-366-0671-7.

External links

• English language website
• thillmann-collection Wolfgang Thillmann, the world's largest private collection of Thonet and bentwood furniture