Our exhibition 'Was ist Loos?' in Kunsthalle Vienna is finished, but there are still nice stories to tell.
Next to questioning design 'Was ist Loos?' aimed to give some answers too, such as the chair that responded to making & making sense:
Kunsthalle Wien needed a conference chair.
A chair was developed for production by Gebrüder Thonet Wien based on both manual and digital production methods. The chair can be stacked and places in rows for talks and events.
Apart from practical and technical considerations the story is also very much about designer, maker and client. The combination of a designed chair for cultural Viennese spot and Gebrüder Thonet Vienna as a manufacturer gives the project a historical touch and a profound and meaningful depth that goes further than designing again another chair.
The Kunsthalle Wien chair refers to the rich historical context of Thonet as a producer of chairs for cultural venues in Vienna with designers such as Loos, Wagner and Hoffmann who challenged design at their time and whose designs are still part of the Gebrüder Thonet collection.
For the first time in ages a Thonet chair was designed again for a cultural place in Vienna making the story round and sound.
The chair is partly made via one of the first 'industrialised' furniture processes: steam-bending wood. This process is still vital but looking at production nowadays it is regarded as a process with a lot of hand work. To counterbalance costs and to make a viable product today, it needed different solutions. Therefore also digital means of production are applied.
See more here | Audio a.o: Ineke at Kunsthalle Wien | Written press a.o: the gap-austria, domus-italy, der standard, archpaper
