Plastic Chairs 
Synthetic plastics have shaped the product 
designs of the industrial nations possibly more 
than any other material since the end of the 
Second World War. The “plastification” of the 
Western world-as Roland Barthes described 
it in an essay in the mid-fifties 1 -was reflected 
in almost all areas of everyday life and also 
opened up undreamt-of possibilities for furni- 
ture design. After the worldwide success of 
fiberglass-reinforced synthetic resin seat-shells 
in the 1950s and the first mass-produced one- 
piece plastic chairs-the first monoblocs-in 
the 1960s, the Thonet Company joined the 
trend in the 1970s: In around 1973, the de- 
signer Gerd Lange designed the first plastic 
furniture for the Company, the “Flex” chair, 
which remained in the product program until 
the 1990s. This hybrid piece of furniture-also 
the rare example of a Thonet stacking and row 
chair-was based on a molded plastic Shell 
produced by OWI, which formed the seat and 
backrest. Only the wooden legs were reminis- 
cent of the classic material of the Thonet chairs, 
even if they were not bent and were also adapt- 
ed in their proportions to the Contemporary 
taste of the 1970s. 2 Compared to Lang’s hy 
brid furniture, the armchair made at the same 
time by the architect and designer Gae Aulenti 
seems formally more balanced, but the high 
sales figures of the “Flex" confirm that with this 
model Thonet had its finger on the pulse of the 
plastic age. 
1 Roland Barthes, “Plastic," in: the same, Mythologies (1957), 1972. 
2 See also Sabine Epple, “Fortschritt mit Konstanten," in: Exhib. Cat. 
Leipzig 2014: Sitzen - Liegen - Schaukeln. Möbel von Thonet, 
8-27: 19 f. 
Sessel Modell 4794 Chair Model 4794 
Entwurf Design: Gae Aulenti, Italien Italy, 1972 
Ausführung Execution: Kartell, Italien Italy, 1974; 
Polyurethan Polyurethane; MAK H 3357/2005 
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