A classic in an ornate form

The story begins in Austria in 1853 when Michael Thonet and his five sons set up a furniture factory in Vienna. But even before that, Michael had developed a new method of bending wood, resulting in a more efficient and easier process for producing soft, delicate shapes. And even the first chair, aptly named 'N. 1', had been designed, produced and moved into the grand rooms of the Palais Schwarzenberg in 1850. The original chair, "N. 1", has since been followed by many new chairs with new numbers, all with a visual relationship and several common denominators.

The curved wood together with the softly springy rattan is perhaps the most significant and what we associate with GTV. A combination of materials that has become as classic as the brand itself. And there are probably few of us who have not sat down on a rattan seat from the prestigious furniture house, either in a private home or with an espresso in a café somewhere in the world.

GTV chairs have not only been used to decorate everything from palaces to cafés but have also featured prominently on the cinema screen. In 1982, they were seen in Poltergeist, scaring viewers as they moved with supernatural powers, and in 2016 they were a key part of the décor at The Lighthouse jazz club in La La Land. And, of course, it was the Gebrüder Thonet Viennese chairs that filled the stage at the Kit Kat Club in Bob Fosse's 1972 Cabaret, where Liza Minnelli played the lead character Sally Bowles and danced with the chairs as the primary prop. A classic performance in an equally classic set design.

But while the chairs with their various numbers may be the first pieces of furniture one associates with the brand, the catalogue of objects is of course much larger than that.

With its geometric shapes, the NYNY Unit from 2020 is as much a work of art as it is a storage space. It was created by the design agency Storagemilano as a tribute to the New Museum of Contemporary Art on New York's Lower East Side. The shape references from the museum's building with its irregularly stacked floors are clear and so is the designers' DNA with its modern language that draws inspiration from both fashion and art.

Swedish Front consists of the duo Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren who met while studying at Konstfack. Together they are behind several products at GTV and Coat Rack Bench is just one of several successful results where Form's playfulness has been fused with GTV's long heritage.

The Lehnstuhl lounge chair, designed by British architect Nigel Coates, is an incredibly fine example of how well the brand's expression is managed when it comes to the design language. The softly curved wooden frame, with its timeless shape, could just as easily have been designed in the company's youth, but was only developed by Coates in 2014.

It is clear that a combination of softly shaped wood and rattan became a success that has long been appreciated in both public and private spaces. And the fact that the furniture works just as well in a simple café as it does in grand palaces must surely be interpreted as a mark of brilliant design. The fact that it is also used in major roles on the cinema screen from time to time hardly makes the story of Michael Thonet and his work any less impressive.

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