Design anno 1880 
The two models shown here were offered at 
approximately the same time-around 1880: 
Dining room chair No. 4 from J. & J. Kohn and 
chair No. 51 from Gebrüder Thonet. While the 
model from Kohn, with its turned rods, incised 
parts, and elaborate bends, is still completely 
caught up in the tangled bentwood shrub of 
Historicism, chair No. 51, which was designed 
and produced in the factory in Bystrice pod 
Hostynem, under the management of August 
Thonet, looks comparatively modern. With its 
ingenious construction, clear tectonics, and 
uniformly strong rod cross-sections, it makes 
one think of a framework made of iron rather 
than a piece of furniture made of wood. Just 
like the classic model No. 14, model No. 51 is 
made of only six individual components, which 
achieve great stability through their diagonal 
bracing. 1 While in this way Thonet created the 
more progressive furniture in around 1880, 
only twenty years later, it was from the Kohn 
Company, that impulses for the “modernization" 
of bentwood furniture emanated: Around the 
turn of the Century, Adolf Loos, Gustav Siegel, 
Otto Wagner, and Josef Hoffmann had furniture 
made by Kohn that was more convincing in its 
design Solutions than Thonet’s Contemporary 
products. 2 
1 The connecting of the front legs to the seat frame was a problem 
which had already very much preoccupied Michael Thonet and, as 
with the Boppard chairs from the early days of Thonet, there are no 
longer any conventional front legs on model No. 51. 
2 After the joint contract awarded to Thonet and Kohn for the 
furnishing of the Postal Savings Bank, Otto Wagner's designs were 
mainly produced by Thonet. 
Sessel Nr. 51 Chair No, 51 
Entwurf Design: Gebrüder Thonet / August Thonet, um ca. 1880 
Ausführung Execution: Gebrüder Thonet, Bistritz Bystrice, um ca. 1880; Buche, 
massiv gebogen, Geflecht Beech, solid bent, cane; MAK H 3100/1989 
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