Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl, African chair, 1921 / Bauhaus-Archiv, Photo: Fotostudio Bartsch, Karen Bartsch / © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn (for Gunta Stölzl)

Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl, African chair, 1921 Bauhaus-Archiv, Photo: Fotostudio Bartsch, Karen Bartsch © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn (for Gunta Stölzl)

Marcel Breuer and Gunta Stölzl, African chair, 1921

Marcel Breuer’s first chair, known as the African Chair and dating from 1921, illustrates the concept of a stable framework with an elastic covering. The back of the chair is formed by textile material by Gunta Stölzl, who also designed the seat cushion. From this point – as Breuer himself pointed out in a film on the development process – it was not far to the tubular steel chair of 1926. The vision: sitting in a floating state …