The Wassily Chair Wasn't Designed for Wassily: A Chair Inspired by a Bicycle, and the Name It Was Given Later

One of the most famous misunderstandings in design history concerns the name of a chair. The Wassily Chair was not designed for Wassily Kandinsky, and the name wasn't even Marcel Breuer's idea — it was a marketing decision made by an Italian factory more than thirty years later.

First came the bicycle, then the chair

In 1925, Breuer bought the first bicycle he had ever owned. What caught his attention wasn't the ride, it was the frame: steel tubing that slender could hold up a grown adult, and the whole thing was light enough to lift with one hand. He was twenty-three at the time, and head of the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus in Dessau.

Turning that observation into a chair was less romantic. Bending steel tube was a plumber's skill back then, not a furniture factory's, and the earliest prototypes were made using techniques borrowed from local pipe fitters. The bigger constraint was the material itself: steel tube of that era had a welded seam, and the seam collapsed the moment you bent it. This chair exists only because the German steelworks Mannesmann had just perfected a process for seamless tubing.

Put another way, the most famous chair to come out of the Bauhaus depended on a metallurgical process. Design history usually hands the credit to the designer, but without that seamless tube in 1925 all Breuer had was an idea he could draw and not build.

Where the name came from

Kandinsky was teaching at the Bauhaus at the time. He admired the finished chair, so Breuer made him a second one for his living quarters. That is the whole story. The chair's designation then was Model B3, and nobody called it the Wassily.

After the war, the Italian manufacturer Gavina licensed the design and put it back into production. While researching the chair's history they came across that anecdote and put Kandinsky's name on it. A good story attached to a ready-made famous name sells rather better than a code like B3. Knoll bought Gavina in 1968, Breuer's designs all moved into the Knoll catalogue, and the name stuck for good.

The original wasn't leather — it was a waxed cotton yarn

Almost every Wassily you see today has black leather straps, which is Gavina's post-war version. The Model B3 that Thonet produced in the late 1920s used fabric straps, tensioned from behind with springs, and came in both folding and non-folding versions.

The strap material was Eisengarn, literally "iron yarn" — a waxed cotton thread that had existed since the nineteenth century. The person who developed it to the point where it could carry a human body and be woven into webbing for Breuer's tubular steel furniture was Margaretha Reichardt (1907–1984), a student in the Bauhaus weaving workshop. Every design history book puts Breuer's name alone on this chair, but the straps actually taking your weight were her work.

The Thonet version went out of production during the Second World War and is now the rarest of them all.

Where that steel tube went next

Three years later Breuer produced the Cesca chair (1928), with the steel tube bent into a cantilever that has no back legs, so the seat gives slightly as you sit down — the first mass-produced tubular steel chair with a cane seat. The name comes from his adopted daughter, Francesca. He moved to the United States in 1937, became a citizen in 1944, and spent the second half of his career mainly on architecture.

NOSA does not distribute Knoll and does not sell the Wassily. But three things that steel tube left behind are everywhere in furniture today, and they're things we genuinely look at when we're choosing what to carry.

The first is the contrast between a chromed metal frame and a warmer material. The ALTER Chair from the Korean brand Rareraw pairs a chromed metal frame with coloured wood; seat and back can match or contrast, and it was designed by the Seoul studio SWNA, measuring W41 × D48.8 × H76 cm. The second is powder-coated steel — a process that didn't exist in Breuer's day — which lets tubing be any colour rather than just a mirror finish. Rareraw's PIN STOOL uses exactly that: 3.3 kg and stackable.

The third is the most interesting: flex that comes from the structure itself rather than from a mechanism. The Cesca's cantilever has no springs and no moving parts; the give is simply what the steel tube does. Zuiver's Flexback armchair works on the same idea — lean back and the whole backrest yields a little, purely through the elasticity of the supporting frame. A hundred-year-old solution, still in use.

Frequently asked questions

Who designed the Wassily Chair, and when?

The Hungarian-born designer Marcel Breuer, between 1925 and 1926 at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, where he was head of the furniture workshop. Its original designation was Model B3.

Was the Wassily Chair designed for the painter Kandinsky?

No. Wassily Kandinsky was teaching at the Bauhaus at the same time; he admired the finished chair, and Breuer then made a second one for his living quarters. The name "Wassily" was adopted decades later by the Italian manufacturer Gavina, which came across the anecdote while researching the chair's history for its reissue.

Why couldn't this chair be made before 1925?

Because of the steel tube. Until the German steelworks Mannesmann perfected seamless tubing, all steel tube had a welded seam that collapsed when bent. Breuer bought his first bicycle in 1925, was struck by how light the frame was, and started working with the material.

Was the original seat made of leather?

Not at first. The Model B3 that Thonet produced in the late 1920s used fabric straps tensioned from behind with springs, woven from Eisengarn ("iron yarn"), a waxed cotton textile. The black leather straps came in after the war, once Gavina took over.

Does NOSA sell the Wassily Chair?

No. Breuer's designs are currently produced by Knoll, and NOSA does not distribute Knoll. This is a design profile, not a sales piece.

Sources

• Wassily chair — Wikipedia
• Marcel Breuer — Wikipedia
• Cesca chair — Wikipedia
• Images: Wikimedia Commons; licence and photographer credited in each caption
• Prices and stock: NOSA RARERAW products, NOSA ZUIVER products