Pair of Wassily Spaghetti Armchairs by Marcel Breuer, 1980s
View Similar Items
Pair of Wassily Spaghetti Armchairs by Marcel Breuer, 1980s
About the Item
- Creator:Marcel Breuer (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 28.75 in (73 cm)Width: 30.71 in (78 cm)Depth: 27.56 in (70 cm)Seat Height: 14.57 in (37 cm)
- Sold As:Set of 2
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:1980-1989
- Date of Manufacture:1980s
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:SAINT-OUEN, FR
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2303328864112
Wassily Lounge Chair
Inspired by bicycle handlebars, the Wassily chair is one of Marcel Breuer’s (1902–81) greatest achievements. Even though the tubular metal chair looked like an artifact from the future when the Hungarian-American designer and architect conceived it in 1925, Breuer could not have foreseen the significant impact that this would have on modern design.
From 1920–28, Breuer studied and then taught at the Bauhaus school of design, where he found a kindred spirit in Walter Gropius, who invited Breuer back as junior master of the carpentry workshop. After less than a year in his new role, Breuer produced his revolutionary chair, which is among the first furniture designs to feature bent tubular steel.
Breuer called the Wassily his “most extreme work” because the pared-down design didn’t look comfortable. It’s true: Take an everyday club chair — the Wassily’s technical name was the model B3 club chair — and toss the cushions and you’d have something like Breuer’s design. The lightweight and mass-produced tubular-steel handlebars of the maker’s bicycle made him wonder if he could achieve something similar with bent-steel furniture.
The resulting mid-1920s-era chair, the seat of which was made of a durable canvas developed by Bauhaus student Margaretha Reichardt, was named the Wassily after painter and fellow Bauhaus colleague Vasily “Wassily” Kandinsky expressed admiration for the piece. Today, Knoll manufactures the Wassily chair.
Marcel Breuer
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld. In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair. Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.
- Rattan Egg Cage Armchair, Italy, 1980sLocated in SAINT-OUEN, FRRattan hang egg cage lounge armchair chair. 1 chair available. Price listed for 1 chair.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Pair of Leaf Armchairs Bouclé Fabric, Italy, 1980sBy Paolo PalluccoLocated in SAINT-OUEN, FRPair of large armchairs or leaf chairs attributed to Paolo Pallucco. Fully upholstered in bouclé fabric. Famous design like Gio Ponti, Gianfranco Frattini, Cassina, Osvaldo Borsani, ...Category
Vintage 1980s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsFabric
- Mid-Century Modern Pair of Armchairs by IPE Bologne, Italy, 1950sBy IPE, Rito VallaLocated in SAINT-OUEN, FRRare Italian Mid-Century Modern pair of lounge chairs armchairs from the editor IPE Bologna Italy. Black metal structure, brass. New upholstery, reupholste...Category
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal, Brass
- Pair of King Tubby Rattan Armchairs by Platt & Young for Driade, Italy, 1990sBy Platt & Young, DriadeLocated in SAINT-OUEN, FRMid-Century Modern style pair of King Tubby rattan wicker armchairs or lounge chairs by the designer Platt and Young for the quality and famous italian desi...Category
1990s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsRattan
- Bamboo Lounge Chair, Italy, 1980sLocated in SAINT-OUEN, FRBamboo folding lounge chair armchair or deck transatlantic chair or chaise longue. In sale separately. Price by item. Possible to purchase a pair, single piece or set of 3 (quanti...Category
Vintage 1980s Italian Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsBamboo
$1,534 / item - Rattan Slipper Chair, 1980sLocated in SAINT-OUEN, FRRattan slipper lounge chair or armchair probably design by Ikea. Famous design like Gio Ponti, Gianfranco Frattini, Tito Agnoli, Cassina, Osvaldo Borsani, Joe Colombo, Vico Magistret...Category
Vintage 1980s Swedish Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer, 1980sBy Knoll, Marcel BreuerLocated in Oud Beijerland, NLIconic black armchair, after the model Wassily by Marcel Breuer. Produced in the 80's in Italy and designed by Marcel Breuer in 1929. Rectangular seat in black leather. The struct...Category
Vintage 1980s German Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer, 1980sBy Knoll, Marcel BreuerLocated in Oud Beijerland, NLIconic white armchair, after the model Wassily by Marcel Breuer. Produced in the 80's in Italy and designed by Marcel Breuer in 1929. Rectangular seat in white leather. The struct...Category
Vintage 1980s German Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Wassily B3 armchair by Marcel Breuer, white leather, Italy 1980sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Vorst, BEWassily armchair designed by Marcel Breuer in 1929, THE Bauhaus classic. Structure in chromed steel tubes, with upholstery in white leather. Vintage, italian edition from the 1980s...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- "Wassily" Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Marcel Breuer, GavinaLocated in Lasne, BEArmchair in Chromed metal and cream fabric. Seat height: 43 cm. wear due to time and age of the chair.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- "Wassily" Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Lasne, BEArmchair in Chromed metal and cream fabric by Marcel Breuer. Seat height: 43 cm. wear due to time and age of the chair.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal
- Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Lasne, BEArmchair in chromed metal and black leather. Wear due to time and age of the armchair. Measures: seat height: 43 cm.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsMetal