Chair No. 14
The first chair made in millions: six pieces of bent beech, ten screws and two nuts.
Michael Thonet had experimented for decades with bending wood when his firm in Vienna produced chair No. 14. It was designed to be made in a factory by unskilled workers and shipped in pieces: 36 chairs fit into one cubic metre.
The chair became the café chair above all others, in Vienna, Paris and the rest of the world, and has been made in tens of millions. It shows how industry could make a good chair cheap.
Materials: Steam-bent beech; seat of cane or moulded plywood
Manufacture: Solid beech rods are steamed and bent in iron moulds, dried and screwed together. The chair could be shipped flat.
The back bow and the back legs are a single bent piece.
The round seat and the ring between the legs that braces them.
The brand or label under the seat shows the maker.