Its catalogue name, 1925
Chapter I. Origin
Chapter II. Anatomy
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Seamless tubular steel
Breuer said the idea came to him while riding his Adler bicycle: if bent steel could hold a handlebar, it could hold a body. Seamless tube bends without splitting, and a factory technique became a domestic language.
Chapter III. Exploded view
Structure and surface never mix. The steel carries and the leather receives the body. Pulled apart, the whole logic of the chair becomes legible.
A
Structure
Tubular steel
B
Surface
Stretched leather
Chapter IV. Matter and light
The same structure changes character with its materials and the light in the room.
Chapter V. Context
1919
A school that sets out to unite art, craft and industry.
1920
He is 18, comes from Pécs, Hungary, and joins the carpentry workshop.
1925
The school moves to Dessau. Breuer, a young master, runs the furniture workshop and designs the chair.
1926
Breuer's tubular furniture equips the spaces of the new school.
1928
He settles in Berlin as an architect and designer.
1933
Under pressure from the Nazi regime, the school dissolves in Berlin.
1960s
The Italian manufacturer Gavina reissues it and names it Wassily, after Kandinsky, a friend of Breuer.
1968
Knoll buys Gavina and the chair enters its catalogue, where it remains today.
Chapter VI. Closing
A hundred years later, it is still a drawing you can sit in.
Objects of the Century, Wassily
000
Preparing the room