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Enterprises
PICASSO AND FREUD PRIZED THE EXCLUSIVITY OF THONET’S DESIGN Contemporary line, Wiener GTV Design is considering the possibility of resuming production of Thonet’s most representative and outstanding contemporary designs: the furniture developed by Enzo Mari with an innovative and refined (and expensive) technique; the chairs designed by Vico Magistretti; and new models in the very traditional Thonet category of rocking chairs. Only time will tell if the new editions will incarnate the perfect craftsmanship that Mari and Magistretti themselves once oversaw. Among the designs inherited from Poltrona Frau, the new company is continuing the production of the chairs created by Ernst Beranek and Hermann Czech, two esteemed Viennese designers. Hopefully, Wiener GTV Design will also develop new products with young Austrian designers (of which there is no shortage), in order to try to achieve what Poltrona Frau was unable to do: mend relations with the Austrian capital and its culture, politics and local economy after the disappointment caused by moving to Italy a company that was deeply rooted in its territory. A company that, it must be remembered, wrote an important page in the glorious history of Viennese Modernism. The first step taken in this direction was the opening of a showroom
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in Stilwerk Vienna. In addition, the company’s new art direction has been trying to create a team of young designers to develop original products and projects to revive the steam-bending techniques and procedures of the past. In doing so, the company intends to position its products in the mid-upper market segment while keeping overhead low. I believe it is a good choice to involve young international designers such as Swedish Charlie Styrbjörn Nilsson, who created the original interior “Ladder”, and Front, another Swedish studio, who designed the new “Arch” coffee table. Equally interesting is the collaboration with British designer Nigel Coates, who was a member of England’s rebel design generation in the Seventies. His “Lehnstuhl” lounge chair continues Thonet’s tradition, which surely will not lose its value over time. Other more recent projects are less innovative, such as “Hold On” and “Brezel”, which have only marginally developed the potential of curved wood. In my opinion, this is the aspect that should be advanced and emphasised with new production techniques, similarly to how Enzo Mari interpreted and renewed Thonet both formally and technically. This is the way by which the new company will advance into contemporaneity, firmly sustained by the pillars of its solid and glorious traditions.
05/03/15 18:00