GEBRÜDER THONET “ WIEN
Federnde Gleittrnge Für Ueroundete
k. u. k. Linienschiffsarzt
Dr. FRANZ HAUCK.
&
Der Zweck dieser Glcittrage ist:
„Schonender und rascher Transport eines
Verwundeten über Treppen von Kriegs^
schiffen während der Gefechtspausen“ □
Keine Marine der Welt besitzt eine so praktische, schonende
und dabei so leicht zu handhabende Tragbahre wie die k. u. k. österr.'ung.
Kriegsmarine in der oben bezeichneten, vom Herrn k. u. k. Linienschiffsarzt
Dr. Franz Hauck erfundenen und von uns verfertigten federnden Gleittrage.
Werbeanzeige für eine „Federnde Gleittrage für Verwundete“, Entwurf
Franz Flauck für die Österreichisch-Ungarische Kriegsmarine, um 1915
Advertisement for a “flexible stretcher for the wounded," design Franz
Flauck for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, ca. 1915
in Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. For example, at the second
General Assembly of Mergers in December 1924, the national Company
Thonet Mundus, spojene Öeskoslovenske tovärny na näbytekz ohyba-
neho dreva A.S. Brno [Combined Czechoslovak Bentwood Furniture
Factory Corporation of Brno], was founded. 17 Finally, in 1933, Leopold
Pilzer was able to buy all of Thonet Mundus' shares from the Credit-
Anstalt and was then the sole head of the Mundus Group. 18 The annual
dividends of the 1920s show how successful the Company was under
his management: In 1923 they amounted to 5% and rose by one percent
each year to a respectable 9% by 1927.
While the Kohn company’s archives are believed to be lost forever, in
2014 and 2016, large parts of the archives of the Thonet Mundus Com
pany were discovered by Radmil Tomcik, an employee of the TON
Corporation in the attic of a building on the old Thonet factory site in
Bystrice pod Hostynem. These documents contain lists of products from
the Interwar Period, the years of the World War, and the first years of the
Post-War Period. In total, the archive cards which were found list 6 247
different pieces of furniture. One of the big surprises is the fact that here
there are also numerous unknown models listed which cannot be found
in any of the catalogs, including a large assortment of folding chairs and
Office furniture as well as products that do not require any bentwood
parts to produce. 19 The vast majority of the index cards also record the
older catalog numbers, which made it possible to compile a clear con-
cordance. 20
From Bentwood Chair to Tubulär Steel Furniture
The bentwood furniture designed by renowned architects and designers
after the First World War was very different from the pre-war models: Art
Nouveau had given way to objectivity. Only three people who had already
worked as designers at the turn of the Century remained: Josef Hoffmann
with two models, Otto Prutscher with a few more designs, and Gustav
Siegel as the head of a designing office. The new generation of designers,
which appeared in the second half of the 1920s, included names like
Antonin Bocek, Josef Frank, Heyer, Ferdinand Kramer, Eberhardt Kraus,
Hans Luckhardt, Adolf Gustav Schneck, Sostheim, Max Urban, Otakar
Vanura, Prof. Paul and Insp. Slezäk. The architect Adolf Loos did not in-
deed design a new model, but in an essay published in 1929, he claimed
that already before the turn of the Century he had regarded the bentwood
chair as “the only modern chair," asserting that the Thonet chair would
be the successor of the dying classic, the carpenter’s chair. 21 With his
prediction, however, he was correct only in so far as it was then the tubulär
Steel chairs that were in accord with the Contemporary aesthetic tastes
and which were also included in the program of the Thonet Company
starting from 1929. The classic bentwood furniture, on the other hand,
had gone out of fashion by 1930, at the latest. As the architect Karl Mang
wrote in his book on Thonet in 1982, looking back at the bentwood fur
niture that had been created since the mid-1920s; “The construction of
tubulär Steel furniture, which has been in use over the years, seems to
have inspired some designers to develop a rather strict concept of chair
17 Cf. Amtsblatt der Tschechoslowakischen Republik, No. 288 from 20 December 1924.
18 Three members of the Thonet family-Theodor, Dr. Richard, and Julius Thonet senior-were still
represented in the management of the Czechoslovak subsidiary of Thonet Mundus. Cf. Geschäfts
nachricht des Verwaltungsrates Thonet-Mundus, vereinigte tschechoslowakische Fabriken für
Möbel aus gebogenem Holz A.G. in Brünn, für das Geschäftsjahr 1930/1931, presented at the
9th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders held on 7 November 1931.
19 In addition, the index cards prove the Cooperation with two Companies which needed bentwood
components for their own furniture: The Mücke Melder Works as well as the UP Works Brno.
20 The author of this essay has already prepared a comprehensive publication, which hopefully will be
published soon.
21 Adolf Loos, “Josef Veillich" (1929), in: id., Sämtliche Schriften 1, ed. by Franz Glück, Vienna/Munich
1962, 436-442: 442.
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