PAIR of WASSILY armchairs in leather and black tubes design BREUER Italian edition by MATTEO GRASSI

The Wassily Chair, also known as the B31 model chair, was designed by Marcel Breuer (the architect of UNEXCO in Paris) in 1925-1926 when he was head of the metal workshop at the Bauhaus in Dessau . This chair was not designed for the constructivist painter Wassily Kandinsky, who at the same time was his colleague at the Bauhaus school. However, Kandinsky admired its shapes so much that Breuer made him a second one for Kandinsky's private apartments. The chair became famous under the name Wassily a decade later when it was reissued by the Italian manufacturer Dino Gavina who had learned of this anecdote about Kandinsky during his research into the origins of the chair. This chair was revolutionary at the time in its use of materials (curved steel tubes and leather)1 and its manufacturing methods: light, inexpensive, easy to assemble, it is easy to reproduce1. The chair uses the same steel as the handlebars of his bicycle Adler inspired the idea of using steel tubes to make his chair1, and this proved that it was a suitable material because it was easily available. If the design (and all subsequent tubular steel furniture) was technologically feasible, it was only because the German steel manufacturing company Mannesmann had just succeeded in producing smooth, curved steel tubing, without visible welding1. Previously, steel tubes had weld lines that would have seriously interfered with the bending of the tubes. Thus, Breuer was inspired by the techniques used by the industry to create an object with an elegant design. Matteo GRASSI, the Italian specialist in stretched leather seats, produced some high quality examples.

Ref. : W436FJTZ