Marcel Breuer – Wassily Armchair

Armchair in elaborately bent tubular steel frame with original Allen screws. Seat, back and armrests made of high-quality core leather. Wassily armchair MADE IN ITALY

Breuer is said to have been inspired by a bicycle steering wheel made of bent steel, which was a technological novelty on the market at the time. The German steel manufacturer Mannesmann developed a processing method that allowed the steel pipe to be bent seamlessly without breaking. Breuer came up with the idea of using this technology in the furniture industry as well. The Wassily armchair was originally registered under the name "B3". It owes its name “Wassily” to a little story between friends and Bauhaus colleagues Marcel Breuer and Wassily Kandinsky. After the prototype for the B3 was completed, Kandinsky was so enthusiastic that Breuer had a second chair made for his friend. Kandinsky's later popularity ultimately led to the name being changed from model B3 to the world-renowned Wassily armchair.

Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer was born in Hungary and worked in a Viennese architecture office before studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar. After his journeyman's examination he became head of the furniture workshop; He retained this position when the Bauhaus moved to Dessau. He went to Berlin and opened his own architecture studio there. In 1935 he first settled in London, where he founded an architectural office with the architect FRS Yorke and later worked as head of the design department at Isokon. In 1937 he emigrated to the USA and received a professorship at the School of Design at Harvard University. In 1937, together with Walter Gropius, he opened an architectural office in Cambridge, where they both worked until 1941. In 1946 he founded Marcel Breuer & Associates in New York, which he managed himself until his retirement in 1976.