B35

In 1925, the Bauhaus designer Marcel Breuer developed the first chair to be made from bent steel tubes. In subsequent years, this new construction principle was widely used. Many modern buildings were furnished with steel tubular furniture. The B 35 armchair was available with a standard iron thread covering. This luxurious version in bright red leather is extremely rare., This spartan but comfortable tubular steel chair was designed by Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer and manufactured in Austria by Thonet. Breuer started designing furniture with curved tubular metal frames in 1925, during his time as head of the carpentry workshop at the progressive Bauhaus art school in Germany. The idea of a ‘floating’ cantilever chair—a chair with no back legs—was not developed by Breuer, but it dates from around the same time.
The B35 is an elegant variant of that model. It has the same geometrical lines, but was designed to offer more comfort. The red seat seems to float in the rectangular frame. Thonet later produced different versions of this model, with seats made of canvas, cane or, as in this case, soft red leather. In 1930, the Deutsche Werkbund, an association of German artists, designers and industrialists, presented the chair at the twentieth Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris. It attracted a great deal of attention, but not all of it positive. Its detractors found the design cold and clinical.