Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
The Bauhaus was a progressive German art and design school founded by the architect Walter Gropius that operated from 1919 to 1933. Authentic Bauhaus furniture — sofas, dining chairs, tables and more — and the school’s followers married industrial and natural materials in simple, geometric forms. The goal of the Bauhaus was to erase the distinction between art and craft while embracing the use of new technologies and materials.
ORIGINS OF BAUHAUS FURNITURE DESIGN
- Art and design school established in Germany in 1919
- Promotion of a union of art, craft and technology
- Design intended for mass production
- School’s workshops focused on cabinetry, metalworking, typography, textiles and more
- Informed by De Stijl, Constructivism, Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, and modernism; influenced mid-century modernism, Scandinavian modernism
CHARACTERISTICS OF BAUHAUS FURNITURE DESIGN
- Emphasis on craft
- Simplicity, order, clarity and a prioritization of functionalism
- Incorporation of geometric shapes
- Minimalist and refined, little to no ornamentation
- Use of industrial materials such as tubular chrome, steel and plastic as well as leather, cane and molded plywood in furniture and other products
BAUHAUS FURNITURE DESIGNERS YOU SHOULD KNOW
- László Moholy-Nagy
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- Anni Albers
- Josef Hoffmann
- Marcel Breuer
- Marianne Brandt
AUTHENTIC BAUHAUS FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
The name Bauhaus is derived from the German verb bauen, “to build.” Under the school’s innovative curriculum, students were taught the fine arts, such as painting and sculpture, as well as practical skills like carpentry and metalworking.
The school moved from Weimar in 1925 to the city of Dessau, where it enjoyed its heyday under Gropius, then Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The period from 1932 to 1933 when it operated in Berlin under Mies was its final chapter. Despite its brief existence, the Bauhaus has had an enduring impact on art and design in the United States and elsewhere, and is regarded by many as the 20th century’s chief crucible of modernism.
The faculty roster at the Bauhaus reads like a who’s who of modernist creative genius — it included such artists as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and László Moholy-Nagy along with architects and designers like Mies and Marcel Breuer, who became known for his muscular brutalist-style concrete buildings in the postwar years. In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus carpentry workshop, Breuer gave form to his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, side tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s Cesca chair was the first-ever tubular steel frame chair with a caned seat to be mass produced, while the inspiration for his legendary Wassily chair, a timeless design and part of the collection crafted to furnish the Dessau school, was the bike he rode around campus.
Bauhaus design style reflects the tenets by which these creators worked: simplicity, clarity and function. They disdained superfluous ornament in favor of precise construction. Seating pieces such as side chairs, armchairs or club chairs for example, were made with tubular metal or molded plywood frames, and upholstery was made from leather or cane. Above all, designs in the Bauhaus style offer aesthetic flexibility. They can be the elements of a wholly spare, minimalist space, the quiet foundation of an environment in which color and pattern come from one’s own collection of art and artifacts.
Today, from textiles to typefaces, architecture, furniture and decorative objects for the home, Bauhaus creations continue to have an outsize influence on modern design.
Find a collection of authentic Bauhaus furniture on 1stDibs.
1930s Austrian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Birch, Plywood
1930s Swedish Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Faux Leather, Birch
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s Austrian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Beech
1930s Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Metal
1930s American Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Wood, Bentwood
1930s Austrian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Beech
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Stainless Steel
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Oak
1930s Austrian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Beech
1930s British Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Metal, Chrome
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Oak
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Metal, Chrome
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Metal, Chrome
1930s Dutch Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Metal, Chrome
1930s Swedish Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Faux Leather, Birch
21st Century and Contemporary Austrian Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Bentwood
1990s Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Upholstery, Wood
Early 2000s American Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s Danish Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Oak
1960s Italian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Carrara Marble
Mid-20th Century Czech Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Bentwood, Textile
Mid-20th Century North American Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
Mid-20th Century Czech Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Bentwood
1980s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Metal
1890s Austrian Antique Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Beech, Plywood
20th Century Italian Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1990s American Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel
1930s American Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Beech
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s French Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
1930s Czech Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel
1930s Austrian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Bentwood
1930s Austrian Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Bentwood
1930s German Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Oak, Plywood
1930s Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Steel, Chrome
1930s Dutch Vintage Bauhaus Dining Room Chairs
Chrome