Michael Thonet
(1796-1871) and his
five children were
the most success-
ful manufacturers
of furniture in the
Industrial Age. Having
been invited to develop a patent in
Austria by Chancellor Metternich, who
had seen his products at the Exhibition
held by the society of friends of arts in
Koblenz, in 1842, Michael Thonet left
Boppard in Germany, to settle in Vienna,
where in 1853 he founded the com-
pany “Gebrüder Thonet” by involving
his five sons. In the Hapsburg capital,
Michael Thonet abandoned the more
traditional technique of glued lamellar
wood in favour of the industrial chemical
- mechanical steam bent process. This
innovation led him to begin producing
wooden furniture, presenting a collec-
tion of elegant, yet practical designs that
could be manufactured on a larger scale.
He immediately supported this with a
distribution and sales network that was
capable of penetrating any market. It
was during this time that products such
as chair No. 1 designed for the famous
Viennese Palais Schwarzenberg made
their début, gaining fame as ‘typically’
Thonet, and from which many other
models were then designed, up to and
including the classic chair No. 14. The
company’s use of high technology and
production techniques, together with
widespread fame and a growing repu-
tation, encouraged the most important
Viennese architects to design new prod-
ucts. Otto Wagner commissioned the
furnishing of the Post Sparkasse. Adolf
Loos designed the chair for the Café
Museum, in 1895 writing: “When I was in
America, I realised that the Thonet chair
was the most modern seating available”.
In 1911, the Gebrüder Thonet catalogue
boasted 980 different models. By the
end of the second world war, independ-
ent production plants had been set
up in various different countries and
developed into separate businesses.
In Austria, the home market of Gebrüder
Thonet, the business was rebuilt by
descendants of Michael Thonet, includ-
ing his great-grandson Fritz Jakob
Thonet as well as Fritz Jakob’s children
Evamarie Thonet and Richard Thonet.
After the war, they had to start from
scratch, with little more than their expe-
rience and passion for furniture. They
recommenced their business in one of
Gebrüder Thonet’s former warehouses
in Vienna. From 1948 on they rented a
production site in Rohrau, Steiermark,
before they finally built their own pro-
duction site in Friedberg in 1962. In
1976 the Austrian business changed
its name from Gebrüder Thonet to its
current name Gebrüder Thonet Vienna.
More recently, Gebrüder Thonet Vienna
GmbH (GTV) has develop edits work in
a successful blend of the traditional and
the modern, of continuity and renewal,
with a new production program that
begins by re-editing a series of Gebrüder
Thonet classics.
At the same time, GTV stands for con-
temporary furnishing. Advanced produc-
tion techniques are applied to innovative
designs and uses of materials, to create
highly sought-after, multipurpose fur-
nishing items. Truly original, up-to-date
solutions that integrate well with the
more classic products of its catalogue,
now reworked. Items such as chair
No. 14, of which more than 50 million
were made between 1850 and 1930,
have gone down in history for their fine
design and manufacturing quality, and
yet still today excite and attract new gen-
erations. GTV always succeeds in finding
the perfect combination of tradition
and innovation, assisted by continuous
research into new, clear-cut, versatile
designs. GTV is open and looking to the
future, without, however, leaving the val-
ues and experience of the past behind.
This collection is a true reflection of the
evolution of our times.
3
HISTORY
