The S 64 Atelier: a classic starts to move
Design: Marcel Breuer, around 1928, S 64 Atelier: Thonet with Christophe Marchand, 2019
The working world is changing – home offices and studio offices are places where
mobility, flexibility, and communication play a decisive role, places where furniture
classics that comply with modern lifestyles are much needed. For this reason, Thonet
makes an icon of classic furniture design mobile – designed around 1928 and valid to
this day in its formal language: the chair S 64 by Marcel Breuer. At imm cologne 2019,
Thonet presents this famous cantilever chair as a swivel chair with a central leg and
castors. As S 64 Atelier, this classic with a new function can be used in home offices as
well as in working and communication zones of modern offices. The S 64 Atelier
continues a concept of Breuer; in the historic Thonet tubular steel catalogue from 1935,
other tubular steel chairs with a swivel frame that combined the design of a cantilever
chair with the function of a swivel chair are attributed to him, among others.
The designers of chairs and furniture manufacturers already had the idea to make chairs mobile and swivable at an early time – including Marcel Breuer. Equipped with a simple central frame, these chairs could be perfectly placed in studios, offices or homes. Today, the working world has become extremely diversified – from concepts that bring cosiness to classic offices to entirely innovative combinations of working and living. This is precisely where such furniture is needed: It adds culture and atmosphere, and it can be universally used. The S 64 Atelier is a mixture of working and conferencing chair, which can also be used in living environments and can be moved or added anywhere.
The S 64 Atelier is a version of the famous cantilever chair S 64 by Marcel Breuer. This swivel chair version has the tubular steel frame with the seat and backrest elements mounted on a five-star aluminium swivel base. The design of these elements as wooden frames with Vienna wicker work, through which Breuer once ingeniously built the bridge between Thonet’s bentwood tradition of the Gründerzeit and 20th century modernism, remains untouched. The Swiss designer Christophe Marchand, who already developed tubular steel furniture for Thonet and approached the task with tremendous sensitivity and respect for the original design idea, embraced this reworking.
