S 35 Cantilever Armchair

Overview

The S 35 is a tubular steel lounge chair that Marcel Breuer is credited with on Thonet's page with the year 1929. Thonet lists the model number S 35 L for the version in the main picture and describes the design as an armchair that runs its whole structure, including the armrests, in a single continuous line. The same programme includes a footstool and a version with a cowhide cover.

Construction

Thonet explains that the design works as a double cantilever: the seat and the armrests flex independently of each other, and the movement of the seat and backrest frame, which projects towards the back, is balanced by the springing armrests. The brochure lists a chrome-plated frame, seat and back in full grain butt leather (granite, mud grey, chocolate or black) or buffalo leather (brown), and armrests in beech or walnut. A cowhide cover is offered in brown-white or black-white.

Specifications

• Dimensions (S 35 L): W 65 cm x D 83 cm x H 84 cm
• Seat height: 37 cm
• Armrest height: 55 cm
• Weight: 14 kg
• Made in: Frankenberg, Germany
• Footstool S 35 LH: W 53 cm x D 66 cm x H 37 cm, 7 kg

Presented in Paris in 1930

Thonet says that among the cantilever chairs of the Bauhaus epoch the S 35 armchair, with its lightness, flexibility and comfort, puts everything heavy and inert in the shade. The comfortable club chair was shown for the first time in 1930 at the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris, as part of the furnishing of a prototype high-rise apartment that Breuer realised together with Walter Gropius and Herbert Bayer. Thonet's page gives 1929 as the design year of the chair itself.

Image source: Thonet — S 35 Cantilever Armchair · © Thonet and the respective rights holders. Quoted to accompany INTEBEE's independent design commentary and research. · View official product page ↗ · Image use & copyright policy

A single line

For Thonet the central idea is that all the functions of a cantilever tubular steel armchair are combined in one line that also takes in the armrests. In 1930 the lifestyle it conveyed appeared visionary to the maker; today the company calls it part of a mobile and individual way of living. A matching footstool, likewise designed as a cantilever piece, is available for more comfort.