By Thonet, Mart Stam
Located in Highclere, Newbury
A set of 8 Mart Stam Bauhaus designed S 43 Cantilever chairs by Thonet with chrome frames and black stained beech back rest and seat. The price listed is for the 8 chairs as shown.
The S43 chair was designed by Dutch architect Mart Stam in the 1920s and was, from the very, beginning produced by Thonet, who still maintain the exclusive license to produce the chair to this day. It’s a great example of the Bauhaus aesthetic being both simple and functional with clean, uncluttered lines.
In all of his furniture designs, Stam relied on straightforward forms, an aesthetic economy of means in the construction and the benefit of improved sitting comfort. In the case of S 43 he combined the tubular steel frame with moulded plywood beech wood shells for the seat and back and thus created an absolute reduction in form to the most basic components. Despite the lack of padding it’s actually a comfortable chair to sit in by virtue of the ergonomically designed moulded seat and back and the flexing effect of the frame.
It was originally produced as a task chair and therefore works well as an office meeting room chair or conference chair, but could also work as a more industrial, modernist dining room chair in the right setting.
Its first major implementation was in the reading hall for natural sciences of the German National Library in Leipzig in 1933. More than 70 years later, Thonet delivered a new shipment of S 43 chairs to the library, but not as replacements; they were an addition to the existing furniture – such is the quality and hard wearing nature of the design.
The set offered here are of recent manufacture and benefit from the factory produced frame glides on the base as shown. All have the Thonet branded labels on the base and on the rear of the back rest and are in very good used condition. Save just two of the chairs, which have some small depression marks on the back corner of the seats (as detailed in the photos), there are no other major marks in the wood or on the chrome frame.
The chairs can be bought as a complete set of 8 via this listing, but are also available to purchase as a set together with a large oval black and chrome Milo Baughman style table...
Category
Early 20th Century German Bauhaus Mart Stam Office Chairs and Desk Chairs