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Wassily Chair

 

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Wassily Chair


 
 


The Wassily Chair, also known as the Model B3 chair, was designDesign

Design, usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours...
ed by Marcel BreuerMarcel Breuer Summary

Marcel Lajos Breuer, architect and furniture designer, was an influential modernist....
 in 1925-26 while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the BauhausBauhaus

Bauhaus is the common term for the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that operated from 1...
, in Dessau, Germany. Despite popular belief, the chair was not designed for the non-objective painterPainting

Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a liquid vehicle to a surface such as paper, can...
 Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist....
, who was concurrently on the BauhausBauhaus

Bauhaus is the common term for the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that operated from 1...
 faculty. However, Kandinsky had admired the completed design, and Breuer fabricated a duplicate for Kandinsky's personal quarters. The chair became known as "Wassily" decades later, when it was re-released by an ItalianItalian people

The Italians are a Southern European ethnic group found primarily in Italy and in a wide-ranging diaspora throughout Western...
 manufacturer who had learned of the anecdotal Kandinsky connection in the course of its research on the chair's origins.

This chairChair

A chair is a piece of furniture for sitting, consisting of a seat, a back, and sometimes arm rests, commonly for use by one ...
 was revolutionary in the use of the materials (bent tubular steelSteel

Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7% by weight....
 and canvasCanvas

Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other functions where sturdi...
) and methods of manufacturingManufacturing

Manufacturing, a branch of industry which accounts for about one-quarter of the world's economic activity, is the applicatio...
. It is said that the handlebar of Breuer's 'Adler'Adlerwerke vorm. Heinrich Kleyer Overview

Adler was a German aircraft manufacturer established by Heinrich Kleyer in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1934 by buying out Gerner....
 bicycleBicycle

A bicycle, or bike, can be defined generally as a pedal-driven human-powered vehicle with two wheels attached to a fra...
 inspired him to use steel tubing to build the chair, and it proved to be an appropriate materialMaterial Summary

Materials are physical substances used as inputs to production or manufacturing....
 because it was available in quantity. The design (and all subsequent steel tubing furniture) was technologically feasible only because the German steel manufacturer MannesmannMannesmann

Mannesmann AG was a German corporation with headquarters in D?sseldorf....
 had recently perfected a process for making seamless steel tubing. Previously, steel tubing had a welded seam, which would collapse when the tubing was bent.

The Wassily chair, like many other designDesign

Design, usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours...
s of the modernist movement, has been mass-produced since the 1960s, and as a design classic is still available today. Though patentPatent

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regul...
 designs are expired, the trademarkTrademark

A trademark, trade mark, ' or ' is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely...
 name rights to the design are owned by KnollKnoll (company)

Knoll is a design firm that produces office systems, seating, files and storage, tables and desks, textiles, and accessories...
 of New York CityNew York City

New York City is the largest city in the United States and the twelfth largest city in the world, making it a major global c...
. Reproductions are produced around the world by other manufacturers, who market the product under different names.