Thonet rocking chair
Bentwood’s tour de force: a rocking chair of loops without a single straight line.
Gebrüder Thonet showed the rocking chair in the 1860s, and it became one of the firm’s best-known models. Made in many versions, it is the emblem of the bentwood furniture of the Viennese café and salon. Examples are in the MAK in Vienna and MoMA in New York.
Materials: Steam-bent beech, woven cane seat and back
Manufacture: Solid beech rods are steamed, bent in iron moulds, dried and screwed together.
The rockers continue in loops up into arms and back – the whole thing is one line.
The parts are screwed, not glued, and can be shipped apart.