Durable Curlicue

Every decade has its new chair. In the '30s people perched in the plywood Alvar Aalto chair; in the '40s it was Charles Eames's Potato Chip; the '50s sought refuge in the Womb Chair of Eero Saarinen. But the chosen chair of the '60s is not new at all; the Thonet (pronounced Tonay) bentwood has been around for more than 100 years.

No one knows how many circus lions have been cowed by the business end of a bentwood chair, or how many Our Town lovers have sipped ice cream sodas in its cane-bottomed embrace. It was the creation of German Cabinetmaker Michael Thonet, who in 1836 discovered a way of bending wood by heating it in steam. Says Industrial Designer Henry Dreyfuss: "Whenever I see a bentwood chair, I want to whistle a Strauss waltz."

Most highly prized by the tastemakers is the Thonet rocker. A cross between a badminton racquet and a Flexible Flyer, this calligraphic doyen of gracious sitting shows off to great advantage against the stark whiteness of painted bricks or modish raw plaster walls. Pablo Picasso owns one, and so does Hollywood Director Billy Wilder. Original Thonet rockers sell nowadays for between $75 and $185 (depending on state of repair and elegance of design) in Manhattan antiqueries, sold for much more until imports of them from Europe began to flood the U.S. market two years ago.

Thonet Industries Inc. of Manhattan, heir to the century-old trademark, is now a bustling commercial furniture maker whose no-nonsense designs bear little kinship to bentwood. Somewhat surprised by all the excitement over vintage Thonet today, the firm nonetheless still "makes available" a modern version of the classic rocker, continues to manufacture the Vienna Chair (the familiar restaurant "upright") as well as the bentwood armchair that brought fame to the Thonet name and once moved Architect Le Corbusier to observe: "We believe that this chair, whose millions of representatives are used on the Continent and the two Americas, possesses nobility."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.