Wassily Chair

Overview

The Wassily™ Chair (model 50L) is Marcel Breuer's Bauhaus club chair of 1925, built from seamless tubular steel with seat, back and arms as separate leather or canvas slings. Knoll lists it with chrome, gold-plated or ultra-matte frames.

Construction

• Frame of seamless 1 in tubular steel, finished in chrome, 18k gold plate or ultra-matte powder coat (dark red, onyx and white, added in 2024)
• Slings of Spinneybeck belting leather with edges dyed to match, thick cowhide, haired hide or natural canvas
• Four plastic floor glides that snap into pre-drilled holes in the base
• A stamp on the frame carries Breuer's signature and the Knoll logo

Specifications

• W 31" × D 27" × H 28¾" (787 × 686 × 730 mm); seat height 16½", arm height 23"
• Colours: 21 belting leathers, 3 cowhides, 8 haired hides and natural canvas

From a bicycle to a chair

Knoll's product story quotes Breuer's own account to a Knoll historian. At 23 he bought his first bicycle, and an architect friend told him its handlebars were made by bending steel tubes "like macaroni". Breuer began to think of bent tubes as the frame for an elastic, transparent chair and found the tube had to be bent without welding points, so that parts could be chromed and fitted together.

Image source: Knoll — Wassily 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

Who named it

Knoll says Breuer later named the chair for Wassily Kandinsky, who came by his studio when the first chair arrived and asked what it was. Wikipedia tells it differently: it says the chair was not designed for Kandinsky, that Breuer made a copy for Kandinsky's rooms, and that the name arrived decades later when the Italian maker Gavina reissued the chair.