Cantilever chair
A cantilever chair is a chair without back legs, the seat of which gives way under the weight of a person (“swings”) and sinks back slightly. A chair without rear legs, which because of its rigid construction does not have this springy seat, is not counted as a cantilever chair. In this case, one speaks more generally of a cantilever chair (from collar = to project ; English name: cantilever chair cantilever chair ). The cantilever is accordingly a variant of the cantilevered chair .
In addition to chairs, there are also stools , armchairs , loungers and sofas in the shape of a cantilever.
history
Design: Marcel Breuer
Frame: chrome-plated tubular steel
Seat / backrest: iron thread covering
Armrests: lacquered wood
The cantilever chair is a striking example of modern furniture design. In 1926, the architect Mart Stam developed the first chair without rear legs under the name Kragstuhl , which, however, still rested on a rather rigid tubular structure. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe showed this type of chair to a broader public for the first time in 1927 with his own design, the MR 20 for the Weißenhofsiedlung , which was already more elastic . Marcel Breuer continued to improve the cantilever chair in terms of elasticity and other things and developed numerous tubular steel versions during his time at the Bauhaus . Many other well-known designers and architects created their own versions of the cantilever chair.
Authorship
After 1929, various lawsuits were conducted on the question of authorship of the cantilever chair that made legal history . In the first between Anton Lorenz as the owner of the rights of Mart Stam and the Thonet company, Thonet argued that the chair was a purely technical invention and that there was no copyright . The judges of the German Reichsgericht, on the other hand, saw Mart Stam's chair as his own creation and in 1932 awarded him the artistic authorship of the cubic cantilever chair .
In 1926, Mies van der Rohe had applied for a patent for his variant of the cantilever chair, the MR 20, before the public presentation of the Stam chair at the Weißenhof exhibition . He successfully defended this in a 1936 lawsuit, in which the Mauser company attempted to have the Mies van der Rohe patent declared null and void, among other things because the older Mart Stams chair was an example of prior use. This was rejected by the court, whereby neither the similar form nor Mart Stam's influence on Mies van der Rohe played a role. Rather, Mies van der Rohe demonstrated that the suspension was an essential feature of his invention, which the first Stam chair lacked. Mies van der Rohe thus held the rights to many technical aspects of the cantilever chair.
Marcel Breuer's share in the authorship of the cantilever chair was rejected by the courts, but is still controversial among art historians .
construction
Frame: tubular steel
Upholstery: leather
Armrests: lacquered wood
The classic cantilever chair has a supporting frame made of a single curved metal tube in the shape of a sled, the front legs bend backwards at the bottom and top. At the bottom, the frame continues on the floor like runners to the rear edge of the furniture, at the top it runs parallel to the runners and serves as a support for the seat. Usually the frame at the rear of the seat surface bends upwards again to attach the backrest to it, or the tubes are bent over to form armrests. Seats or cushions and backrests are hung or clamped into this frame. This construction principle is also used for cantilever chairs made of molded plywood . The Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto designed some successful models in the 1930s.
Cantilever chairs made of plastic usually get by without a frame . With these, the backrest, seat, "legs" (connecting piece between seat and foot) and foot are a single, coherent plastic surface.
physics
The statics (stability) is given in spite of the missing rear legs because the resulting force is diverted to the floor runners or the feet via the tension in the front legs . The runners, which run to the rear end of the chair, form a wide floor support and prevent the chair from tipping over backwards.
If someone sits in the cantilever chair, the elasticity of the front legs gives way, and the seat surface sinks slightly downwards and backwards. This creates a pleasant rocking when sitting, the chair reacts resiliently to movements of the person.
Well-known types
- Metal frame:
- P 43 . Design: Mart Stam and / or Marcel Breuer (not finally clarified)
- MR 20 or " Weißenhof chair ". Design: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- Ceska . Design: Marcel Breuer
- Wood:
- Model No. 31 . ( glued molded plywood ) Design: Alvar Aalto
- Poäng ( glued molded plywood ) Design: Noboru Nakamura (for IKEA ) - current mass product
- Plastic:
- Panton Chair . Design: Verner Panton (for Vitra ), inspired by an idea and the cardboard and wire model by Gunnar Aagaard Andersen , 1952 and Poul Kjærholm, 1954.
Rare models
- Original Mauser RB 4 1939. The designer was not named by the Mauser company. Very short production period. Often confused with the post-war model because it has the same type designation. The design of the original Mauser RB 4 from 1939 is much more consistent than that of the successor model. The Mauser RB 4 model after 1945 has a rounded backrest and very short armrests. In addition, there is no longer the classic embossed seat, which is divided for each leg, and the cantilever tubes are vertical again. Typical for the conception of form in the 1950s.
See also
literature
- Chair Museum Burg Beverungen (Ed.): The cantilever chair . König, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-88375-351-3 .
- Ivan Margolius, 'Cars, Furniture, Architecture', The Automobile, April 2016, pp.54-58 and Newsletter of the Friends of Czech Heritage Winter / Spring 2016 https://www.czechfriends.net/images/NEWSLETTER14_MargoliusArticle_-_Tatra. pdf
