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Andy Warhol: Soup Cans, 1961/62, Acryl auf Leinwand, 32 Tafeln; chairs to be regarded by leading architects here and abroad, even today,
Privatsammlung Andy Warhol: Soup Cans, 1961/62, Acrylic paint on or rather, particularly now, as appropriate and beautiful.” 25
canvas, 32 panels; Private Collection
In the 1960s, under exactly these premises, the rediscovery of bentwood
furniture, which led to its nobility and musealization, finally took place. In
a critique of the exhibition which was shown at the Bauzentrum in 1965
and was to form the basis of the MAK's Thonet Collection architect Hans
Hollein also paid tribute to the material and production-oriented design
language of bentwood furniture: “The significance of Thonet lies in the
fact that he was one of the first to use mass-produced industrial methods
to fabricate products whose shape was largely determined by the
process. The process of bending wood gave rise to new forms, some-
times of inexorable elegance and beauty, which were in keeping with
the Industrial Age." 26
Thonet Furniture as Design Classics
The fact that the general recognition of bentwood furniture as classics
of design came at a relatively late date, namely not until the 1960s al-
though its aesthetic and functional significance had long been established,
can probably be explained only by the basic skepticism which the func
tional objects of the Industrial Age still faced for a long period of time:
As aesthetically pleasing, functional, inexpensive, and durable, Thonet
chairs were highly valued, but as widely used industrial mass-produced
goods, they lacked an “artistic” value that would have justified their in-
clusion in a museum collection. In this sense, the passage of the draft
letter cited at the Start of this essay, in which Adolf Loos reminds us that
he was the first architect in Vienna at the turn of the Century “to worship”
the “Standard Thonet chair”-and that for this he was “branded as a non-
artist by the Secessionists"-is also meaningful. 27
25 (Without author), “Stahlrohrmöbel. Thonet-Möbel seit 100 Jahren modern,” in: Profil 5, 1 st year,
May 1933, 177.
26 Hans Hollein, “Biegen oder Brechen. Thonet Bugholzmöbel aus der Sammlung Sailer im Bauzentrum,”
in: Bau 4, 20th year, 1965, 122.
27 Loos, as in note 1.
17
