The Mechanization of Furniture 
As the architectural historian Sigfried Giedion 
stated in his book Mechanization Takes Com- 
mand, published in 1948, there was a rapid 
mechanization of furniture production in the 
course of the so-called patent furniture move 
ment of the 19th Century: Particularly in the 
US, a huge variety of sophisticated mecha- 
nisms was registered for patent approval, 
which not only had a positive impact on the 
seating furniture sector in the form of improve- 
ments in seating comfort through adjustable 
seats and backrests, but also precipitated a 
high level of specialization. 1 In the second half 
of the 19th Century, chairs based on the Amer 
ican model, with mechanisms allowing for 
more diversified-today one would say: active- 
dynamic-working postures, were increasingly 
produced also in Europe. Already in the mid- 
1860s, the Thonet Company offered a revolving 
stool, which was further developed to the mod 
el on the poster from 1873 and then on to the 
Revolving Armchair No. 1 shown here. In con- 
trast to this early rotating furniture, whose lower 
section, with the four bentwood legs arranged 
around a central part, and whose caned seat 
and backrest were dedicated to the charac- 
teristic Thonet aesthetics, later models oriented 
themselves more heavily on American models 
also in terms of form. As of 1908, for example, 
the Company added the Revolving Armchair 
No. 5541, which was based on tiltable Amer 
ican barber chairs, to its product palette, 2 and 
then in the early 1920s, also the “revolving 
stool for typists” 3 model No. 5110, which 
already had the look of the typical office chairs 
of the 20th Century. The almost motor-like 
mechanism under the seat of this model was 
hardly possible to overlook and allowed for the 
adjustment of not only the seat height between 
38 and 52 centimeters, but also the fixation 
and the angle of inclination of the seat and the 
Suspension and position of the backrest. 
1 Cf. Sigfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command-A Contribution 
to Anonymous History, New York, 1948. 
2 The Company introduced a new numbering System for their furniture 
in the 1904 catalog. Supplementary numbers were placed in front 
of the already existing product numbers, making it possible to 
assign the products to the respective furniture type. In this way the 
Rotary Armchair No. 41 became the No. 5541. 
3 Zentral-Anzeiger No. 75 from 15 December 1922, no page number. 
151