Tecta

Heritage

Tecta is a family-run German furniture manufacturer based in Lauenförde, Lower Saxony. According to Wikipedia, the company was founded in 1956 by the architect Hans Könecke and taken over in 1972 by Werner Bruchhäuser and his son Axel Bruchhäuser, who had left the GDR that year. The family's heritage includes friendly ties with Marcel Breuer, the Gropius family, Jean Prouvé and the architects Alison & Peter Smithson, who between 1990 and 2003 shaped the company grounds into the "Tecta Landscape".

Philosophy

Tecta calls itself an ambassador for the Bauhaus. It decides for itself what to produce and how, "not guided by fashions or market analyses, but by our own ideas and visions". Its Bauhaus reeditions are made true to the originals and under licence, approved by the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin and marked with Oskar Schlemmer's signet; Tecta holds more than thirty Bauhaus logos, the most of any company worldwide.

Iconic Works

Tecta produces Bauhaus originals such as Marcel Breuer's D4 folding armchair and cantilever chairs by Breuer and Mies van der Rohe, alongside its own developments such as the B25 cantilever chair and Stefan Wewerka's single-leg cantilever chair. Several avant-garde designs of the 1920s, including Walter Gropius's Fagus armchair, were first produced in series by Tecta.

Today

Tecta is managed by the fourth generation: Christian Drescher took over from his uncle Axel Bruchhäuser. Around 35 employees work in Tecta's own joinery, metalworking, upholstery and weaving workshops in Lauenförde, and the furniture is 100% made in Germany. Next door, the Tecta Cantilever Chair Museum, in a building designed by Peter Smithson, documents almost 100 years of chair design.