Adolf Loos vs Le Corbusier
lt was not until 1913, over a decade after his
notorious Cafe Museum (1 899), that Adolf
Loos was able to furnish another cafe in
Vienna, the Cafe Capua. An admirer of Anglo-
Saxon culture, Loos once again chose com-
fortable bentwood seating, namely the Thonet
furniture models 519-0 and 1519-0 which
were derived from the classic Windsor chairs
which are populär in North America, 1 Also in
the 1920s, simple bentwood furniture was still
widely used by Contemporary architects to fur
nish modern interiors: Le Corbusier, for exam-
ple, appreciated the Thonet model No. 6009,
which he selected, among others, for his Pavil
lon de l'Esprit Nouveau in 1925. In an essay
published in 1929, Loos approved of Le Cor-
busier's preference for bentwood furniture in
principle-but simply suggested that he was
using “the wrong model” in his buildings: Pre-
sumably Le Corbusier's choice did not seem
comfortable enough for him and was also im-
practical because the armrests were too high
for a dining armchair, Loos claimed that he
had already been calling the bentwood chair
“the only modern chair” since 1898, and an-
nounced that the Thonet chair would be the
successor of the dying classical joiner's chair. 2
He was not completely wrong with his prophe-
cy, albeit in the end it was not the bentwood
chairs but rather the chairs made of tubulär
Steel produced by the Thonet Company since
1929, which were to become at least the
chairs of the next decade. 3
1 Cf. Eva B. Ottillinger, Adolf Loos. Wohnkonzepte und Möbel
entwürfe, Salzburg/Vienna 1994, 127ff.
2 Adolf Loos, „Josef Veillich“ (1929), in: the same, Sämtliche
Schriften 1, ed. von Franz Glück, Vienna/Munich 1962, 436-442:
442. In the Thonet Catalog from 1914/15 the Capua chair and
armchair had the numbers 519-0 and 1519-0, whereby the O
referred to the saddle seat made of solid wood. In the 1915
Supplement, the armrests were made in two parts.
3 Cf. Otakar Mäöel, 2100 MetaI Tubulär Chairs, Rotterdam 2006.
Schreibfauteuil Nr. 9 (Kohn Nr. 712) Desk Armchair No. 9 (Kohn No. 712)
Entwurf Design: J. & J. Kohn, 1900
Ausführung Execution: Gebrüder Thonet, Bistritz Bystrice, um ca. 1910;
Buche, massiv gebogen, Geflecht Beech, solid bent, cane; MAK H 2924/1987
197
