Rowac

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ROWAC
legal form
founding 1888
resolution 1948
Reason for dissolution Nationalization, conversion into VEB
Seat Chemnitz, Saxony GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Robert Wagner
Branch Hardware production

Rowac (Robert Wagner Chemnitz, spelling ROWAC) was an iron goods factory founded by Robert Wagner in 1888 in Chemnitz, Saxony, which produced furniture for industrial use. Today, Rowac's stools, chairs and cabinets are mainly traded as antiques.

history

Rowac was founded in 1888 on Zschopauer Straße in Chemnitz. In 1920 the company moved into the factory in Altchemnitz (Annaberger Straße), which is still home to the successor company bemefa GmbH. The so-called Rowac stool or stool, which apparently found widespread use in the 1920s, earned its reputation above all (see below). Rowac also produced various chairs, cupboards, tables and various (storage) boxes and containers

In the online archive of the German Patent and Trademark Office , numerous patents of the company can be found (mostly from the 1920s), which concern details of various stools and chairs, but also other things such as bottle crates, coil cases and window locks. In 1931 the company was mentioned as an example in specialist literature on hygiene at the office workplace.

After the Second World War, the company was transformed into VEB BEMEFA (factory equipment and metal goods factory). Bemefa Metallmöbel GmbH has existed since 1990.

At the end of 2015 the company Goldstein & Co. in Leipzig , together with the rights holder, reissued a Rowac folding stool.

Today Rowac products are traded as antiques and exhibited in museums. In the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) Vienna a stool and an advertising trademark of Rowac can be seen. A Rowac bottle crate is exhibited in the Bitterfeld District Museum. The Rowac stool found its way into the chair collection of the Institute for Art History, Architecture and Urbanism at the Technical University of Delft , Netherlands.

The Rowac stool

Four restored ROWAC stools of different sizes

In 1905 the first model of the three-legged stool came on the market, which was widely used by the 1920s at the latest. In 1920 Rowac received a patent for the "attachment of iron stool legs", according to which the stool - without loss of stability - could be sent in a dismantled state and only assembled and screwed at the planned place of use, so that shipping, especially in large numbers, was space-saving and therefore inexpensive. It is questionable whether this technology was actually used in series. The riveted stool was undoubtedly the most popular, which means that it cannot have been retrofitted.

In 1923 the administration building of the General German Trade Union Confederation in Berlin-Mitte , built by the architects Max Taut and Franz Hoffmann , was equipped with Rowac stools; and in 1926 the stools found a place in the classrooms and workshops of Walter Gropius' Bauhaus building in Dessau .

The most common model is the round stool on three legs. There is also the four-legged version with a rectangular wooden seat plate. Both come in different heights. All models have U-shaped bent legs made of sheet steel, which become wider towards the top and also conically converge towards the top. The feet are elaborately folded in order to achieve a flat surface in order to protect the floors. Just above the feet, the legs are connected by cross braces, which are also bent in a U-shape. A round (or rectangular) auxiliary plate made of embossed sheet steel sits between the seat plate and the legs.

The design corresponds to the functionalist ideal, which was represented in the inter-war period in Germany by the Bauhaus , among others , and which should therefore be the focus of aesthetic interest. The design of the Rowac stool is reduced and functional, as it was designed for use in the factory and not for an aesthetically attentive audience.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bemefa-simco: company history. Retrieved July 1, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b company history. bemefa Metallmöbel GmbH, accessed on July 1, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Patent DE502087A : Metal frame for chairs, stools or the like. Applied on February 10, 1929 , published on July 8, 1930 , applicant: Wagner, Robert. ‌
  4. ^ Rehm, Robin: The Bauhaus building in Dessau. The aesthetic categories purpose - form - content . Gebr. Mann-Verlag, Berlin, p. 77 .
  5. ↑ Dionys Kremer, Ernst Holstein: Hygiene in the office and in commercial operations (supplements to the Central Gazette for Industrial Hygiene and Accident Prevention) . Jumper; Softcover reprint of the original, 1931, ISBN 3-662-01803-9 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  6. ↑ Rowac folding stool - Made in Leipzig / Saxony. Retrieved July 3, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Industrial stool . Retrieved July 7, 2016 .
  8. ↑ advertising brand. Retrieved July 7, 2016 .
  9. ↑ "Rowac" bottle crate with glass bottles. Retrieved July 7, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Otakar Macel et al .: Chairs. The Delft Collection . Ed .: Institute for Art History, Architecture and Urbanism, Delft University of Technology. 010 Publishers, Rotterdam.
  11. ^ A b c Rehm, Robin: The Bauhaus building in Dessau. The aesthetic categories purpose - form - content . Gebr. Mann-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-7861-1430-7 , pp. 77 ff .
  12. ↑ Patent DE357048A : Attachment of iron stool legs. Applied September 30, 1920 , published August 16, 1922 , applicant: Wagner, Robert. ‌
  13. ↑ a b Sebastian Hackenschmidt: Untitled . In: Industriemöbel - Prototypen der Moderne (exhibition catalog) Ed. Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), Vienna . 2011, p. 46 ff .
  14. ↑ Patent DE498762A : Floor protection plate for inclined furniture feet made of profile iron. Published May 28, 1930 Applicant: Wagner, Robert. ‌