I have been an admirer of this iconic piece of furniture for the longest time. My earliest memory of this chair is from when I visited a Parsi family that had the plastic version of this in their dining room. As the elders socialized, I killed time by sticking spoons into the weave of the seat.
Later my education in Architecture and Industrial Design only increased my appreciation for this wonderful piece of furniture design. Since then I have spent countless hours looking at pictures of this chair in various settings and imagining how it would look in my future house.
Image Credit: Thonet.de
Chair No. 14 is one of the most famous chairs designed by Micheal Thonet of the Thonet Chair Company in the 1850’s. It is also popularly known as the Bistro chair. Versions of these furnish many Irani Cafes of Mumbai.
It is a design icon and is considered the most successful mass-produced product in the world till date. Thonet’s No. 14 is made of six pieces of steam bent wood, ten screws, and two nuts. When knocked down it is extremely compact and 36 chairs can be packed into 1 cubic meter box. Since then many designers have made numerous interpretations of this classic design.
Have a look at how folks have incorporated the chair no. 14 in their lives and indulge in my favorite activity of (endlessly) ogling at beautiful images of interiors, in search of the always needed yet elusive – inspiration.
Image Credit: Helen Cathcart
Image Credit: The Designfiles
Image Credit: Homeadore
Image Credit: Ton
Image Credit: Irisblackboard
Image Credit: My Scandinavian Home
Image Credit: Little Green Notebook
Image Credit: Kitchn
Image Credit: Coco Lapine
Image Credit: vkvvisuals
Image: Live Creating Yourself
Have you been an admirer of any such iconic designs? Let me know your favorites in the comments.
I’ve never looked at so many pictures of chairs in one sitting before! Pun intended 🙂
Mr Sawatsky….good one ! 🙂 But isn’t the no.14 just brilliant !
I been calling them chairs my whole life! I didn’t know they had a special number! Also if it ‘s called chair No.14 then there must of been other models too right?
Yeah you are right! Variety of models, types designs.
Hi Ms Plainspoken, love your design blogs. I just came back from a holiday in Scandinavia (with Denmark being arguably the capital of chair-making) and must say that I fell for Arne Jacobsen all over again. Feel free to pop by my site when you have a chance? Cheers! ^_^
Jolene,
I agree Jacobsen’s contribution to functionalism is incomparable!
And his Swan chair is a classic! I will perhaps do a post on them soon!
Thanks a ton for your thoughts, heading to your blog right away 🙂
Absolutely ! That’s a great Idea. I wish to travel there someday!
You’ll have great fun
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