5 Bizarre Facts About Bentwood Chairs You Might Not Know

The Bentwood chair is considered the classic amongst chairs and has stood the test of time since it was first produced back in 1859. It’s graced the premises of many a café from Beijing to Bengal and 150 years later it’s still as popular today as it was back then. To celebrate the popularity of this iconic piece of furniture we thought we’d have a bit of fun and offer up some bizarre facts about Bentwood chairs you might not know.

Fact 1
Over 80 million Bentwood chairs have been manufactured and sold (50 million prior to 1930) and famous people to have owned Bentwood chairs include Albert Einstein, Joseph Stalin, Pablo Picasso and the pint-sized French impressionist painter Henri de Talouse Lautrec. In fact in his painting ‘At the Moulin Rouge’ Lautrec featured not one but two Bentwood chairs.

Fact 2
Despite the fact that the later success of the Bentwood chair rested on their simple design which utilised no binding compound (glue) whatsoever, the inventor Michael Thonet (pronounced Tho-Ney) was so adamant that binding his chairs with glue was the way to go he decided to buy his very own glue factory in 1837 to in order to produce his own glue for his chairs. Needless to say in 1856 that all changed with the invention of the world’s first glueless chair (Chair no 1).

Fact 3
In 1889 the Thonet Company used the World Fair held in Paris to portray one of the earliest forms of shock advertising. They threw their chair No. 14 (known as the Quitay or Vienna chair) from the top of the newly built Eiffel Tower to demonstrate it’s strength. It may have smashed into tiny pieces below but it brought the attention of the chair to the world and surprisingly, sales went through the roof.

Fact 4
The first mass-produced chair ever was thought to be Thonet’s Chair No 14. It consisted of only six component pieces, plus a couple of nuts and screws (note the absence of glue!). It was designed to be pieced together by the purchaser and even came with simple instructions. It does make you wonder where a certain Swedish company got their inspiration from?

Fact 5
Even though over 80 million Bentwood chairs have been manufactured to date, no two are exactly the same. As the chairs are made from solid timber they are like like finger prints and no one piece of timber is the same. The next time you see two Bentwood chairs together, take a closer look at them and spot the difference.

If you love the style of the Bentwood chair but can’t quite stretch to the real thing then here at Cafe Furniture Melbourne we have a wide range of quality replica furniture from Tolix stools to Bentwood chairs and much more besides. Why not call in to our warehouse or alternatively check out our website to see what we have to offer.