


Architonic ID: 20802815
Year of Launch: 1929
Concept
JS. THONET A PERSONAL INTERPRETATION BY JIL SANDER
German fashion designer Jil Sander is internationally renowned for her purist aesthetics. Her catwalk collections consistently featured striking cuts, exceptional material quality and an innovative approach. Her collaboration with Thonet is her first foray into the world of furniture design. With the JS. THONET signature collection, she has taken the most famous tubular steel classics from the late 1920s and put her own stamp on them. In her two lines, SERIOUS and NORDIC, the designer has reinterpreted the iconic S 64 cantilever chair (Design: Marcel Breuer, 1929/1930, artistic copyright: Mart Stam), adding an extra touch of elegance and class – with high-gloss lacquered wood details, refined tubular steel frames, and seats and backrests made of Viennese canework or leather in a nuanced colour palette. Jil Sander reveals she took inspiration from a variety of looks: the finish on a Steinway grand piano, the leather upholstery of a stylish English car and the matt nickel-silver of architectural elements.
The JS. THONET signature collection also includes a side table, the classic tubular steel B 97, a versatile Thonet design dating from 1933. This piece has been designed to match the chairs. In its dimensions, the table set B 97 is reminiscent of Marcel Breuer’s nesting table B 9. Its altered design, however, offers a practical advantage: the opening on one side allows the tables to be positioned over the edge of a sofa, armchair or bed. They can also be pushed into one another to save space. All pieces in this collection feature Jil Sander’s engraved signature on the frame.
This product belongs to collection:
Base metal, Metal

Hungary
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer is considered the inventor of modern steel furniture. His minimalist cantilevered S 32 and S 64 chairs, and the B 3, or Wassily Chair, continue to be well known. Despite being known for his furniture design, throughout his life Breuer thought first and foremost of himself as an architect. Marcel Breuer’s life and work Marcel Breuer was born on the 21st of May, 1902, in Pécs, Hungary and died on the 1st of July, 1981, in New York. At the age of 18, Breuer began studying art in Vienna, but dropped out. He then moved to learn carpentry at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Walter Gropius, the school’s founder, noticed the young man’s talent, taking him under his wing. By 1925, Breuer had become "Young Master" and was head of the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus. Because of his Jewish descent, Breuer soon left Germany, moving to Hungary, then to London, and finally to the US in 1937. There, he taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and founded an architecture firm with Gropius. Breuer's Wassily Chair & other tubular-steel furniture Breuer made his famous steel furniture mainly at the Weimar Bauhaus. It was there that he created the Wassily Chair, the Laccio Tables and the B 9 Nesting tables. The core elements of Breuer's designs were steel tubes; inspired by the stability of the new Adler bicycles, they became his trademark. He combined the steel tubes with painted wood and textiles to create his unique, minimalist style. Breuer’s steel cantilever chairs S 32 & S 64 Breuer designed the classic S 32 by combining steel pipes with rattan and leather. Eventually, Thonet acquired the license to produce the design, and added a version with armrests (S 64). Breuer had been deeply inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s MR Side Chair, which is considered the most well-known cantilevered chair and has enjoyed unparallelled popularity to this day. The Wassily Chair B 3 by Marcel Breuer The B 3 is an abstraction of the then-popular upholstered armchairs, reduced to an almost transparent essence. The frame, made from steel tubes, and ribbons of fabric create the feeling of "sitting on springy columns of air" as Breuer himself said, and was inspired by Rietveld’s Red/Blue Chair. Wassily Kandinsky, a friend of Breuer’s at the Bauhaus, complimented the chair’s uniqueness, and so it became known as the "Wassily" chair. Breuer’s career as an architect Marcel Breuer considered himself more an architect than a furniture designer. After immigrating to the US, he began his architectural career in earnest. Many of his buildings have become just as iconic as his furniture: they include both residential buildings such as Breuer Houses I and II, as well as public buildings like the Whitney Museum, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and Saint John's Abbey in Minnesota. He also designed the department store De Bijenkorf in Rotterdam. Breuer tried to bring regional touches to his buildings, particularly his houses, while keeping within the modernist idiom. More structurally daring buildings such as the Church at Saint John’s, and a ski resort in Flaine, France, also formed part of Breuer’s repertoire. © by Architonic