In the field of art as well as arts and crafts, the
imitation of materials has been an established
cultural practice for centuries: In Order to imi-
tate solid wood, various plastic materials such
as papier mache, gypsum or cast iron were
used repeatedly. Cheap native woods were al
so offen covered with rare and exotic veneers
or visually enhanced by Chemical stains. In the
context of exotic movements, bamboo was
sometimes imitated: This exotic material was
characteristic, especially for the chinoiserie-
European works of art, which were based on
Chinese and Indo-Chinese models-which was
populär in the 18th Century. While real bamboo
was used for trays, writing tools, and small
Containers, it was usually imitated for tea sets
and furniture. When exoticism, brought on by
the world fairs in the middle of the 19th Century,
came back into fashion, the bamboo furniture
also had a small renaissance, which the Thonet
Company became a part of in the 1890s, start-
ing out with a furniture series made from “im-
itations of light and brown bamboo" , : This se
ries included a wide ränge of all types of home
furnishings, including complete sets which
were made from beech rods, turned in such a
way that they looked like real bamboo with
its characteristic annular thickenings and
were bolted together like regulär bentwood
furniture. 2 However, due to an increasingly
negative view of the imitation of materials and
the historical Obsession with simulating things,
this type of furniture was unable to last long
on the market.
Around 1900, the Thonet Company also included furniture made of
real bamboo in their product ränge, but these individual components
were not yet bent. In 1905 a “bent bamboo furniture production
factory" was established in RadomySI in Bohemia, but apparently
there were technical difficulties in the implementation, so that
ultimately only “imitations of light and brown bamboo" were offered.
Cf. ZA No. 13 from 31 Mai 1905, 4, and ZA No. 16 from 25
September 1905, 5 f.
Cf. Thonet Catalog from 1895, 49 ff.
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