Construction and Deconstruction
Sessel Nr. 14 Chair No. 14
Entwurf Design: Gebrüder
Thonet, Wien Vienna, 1859
Ausführung Execution:
Gebrüder Thonet, um ca. 1922;
Buche, massiv gebogen, Eisen
Beech, solid bent, iron;
MAK H 2763/1984; Schenkung
Donation Stefan und and Paul
Asenbaum
.*
„convertedOl “ (Thonet-Sessel
Nr. 14 Thonet Chair No. 14)
Konzept und Ausführung Design
and execution: :mentalKLINIK,
Istanbul, 2007; Buche,
Geflecht Beech, cane;
MAK H 3754/2013,
Schenkung der Künstlerinnen
Donation by the artists
In Order to illustrate the convincingly simple
construction of chair model No. 14-undoubt-
edly the most well-known piece of Thonet fur-
niture and one of the first classics of modern
industrial design 1 -many museums have clear-
ly arranged the components of a specimen on
a display board: “Chair No. 14, the end of a
long series of experiments, consists of no more
than six parts: Crest rail with rear legs, splat,
seat ring, leg ring, and both front legs.” 2 Made
from beech wood, these mass-produced com
ponents have been shipped all over the world
and assembled at the destination into a com-
plete chair using ten screws. In a very different
way-through constructive deconstruction-
the artist groupimentalKLINIK turned the
Thonet classic into a wall object in the mid-
2000s: In the style of the “destruction art” of
the 1960s, 3 the chair was radically disassem-
bled, so that it is hardly recognizable as
a piece of furniture-and cannot immediately
be put together into a functional object again.
Not only the familiär “picture” of a piece of fur-
niture was taken apart, but also the obvious
notion that we have of design in the sense of
product development. The assumption that the
meaning of an object is exhausted in the shap-
ing and application as a commodity is thus
called into question.
1 Cf. Andrea Gleiniger, Der Kaffeehausstuhl Nr. 14 von Michael
Thonet, Frankfurt am Main 1998.
2 Karl Mang, Thonet Bugholzmöbel, Vienna 1982, 48. The seat ring
was of course covered with cane.
3 Cf. Justin Hoffmann, Destruktionskunst, Munich 1995.
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