Tugendhat Chair

Overview

The Tugendhat™ Chair is a cantilevered lounge chair that Knoll dates to 1929, made armless and with arms. It was designed for the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, and Knoll brought it back into production in 2024 as an archival reissue. A thick cushion sits above a leather strap back on a stainless steel frame.

Construction

• Cushions of highly resilient urethane foam with a down-like Dacron polyester fibre fill, upholstered in Spinneybeck® leathers and Knoll Textiles
• Stainless steel frame in polished chrome, hand ground and hand buffed to a mirror finish, or powder-coated in ultra-matte onyx
• Spinneybeck® leather straps attached to the frame with aluminum rivets
• The cantilevered frame gently bounces with the sitter

Specifications

• Armless, W 27½" × D 27.8" × H 32" (699 × 706 × 813 mm); seat height 15.7" (399 mm)
• With arms: W 30" (762 mm), D 27.8", H 32", seat height 15.7"
• Weight 52 lb armless and 58½ lb with arms; weight capacity 250 lb

A chair for Brno

Knoll's design-plan page says Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich designed a home for the Tugendhat family in 1929, in Brno in the Czech Republic, and describes the villa as a celebrated example of functionalist architecture with austere concrete construction, exterior walls of glass and open interiors filled with natural light. Mies also specified the interior, from light switches to furnishings.

Image source: Knoll — Tugendhat Chair · © Knoll and the respective rights holders. Quoted to accompany INTEBEE's independent design commentary and research. · View official product page ↗ · Image use & copyright policy

The Feder-Sessel

One of the pieces he designed for several rooms of the house was the Feder-Sessel, German for "spring chair". It became known as the Tugendhat Chair when photographs of the villa appeared in the press.

Back in production

A Knoll story on the chair calls it a 1929 masterpiece, brought back into production in 2024 as an archival reissue, and describes a return to the house with the photographer Franck Bohbot to mark the occasion.