Michael Thonet was born on 2 July 1796 in Bopard-am-Rhein, Prussia (present day Germany). July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 1796 was a leap year starting on Friday. ... The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701-1918 The word Prussia (German: Preußen or Preussen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: Prūsai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia and...

Quite fittingly he started life near the start of the industrial revolution. He would go on to form a company and pioneer mass production, both attributes of this new industrial era. The Industrial Revolution is the name given to the massive social, economic and technological change in 18th century and 19th century Great Britain. ...

He trained as an apprentice cabinet maker in his home town. After his apprenticeship, he began almost immediately to experiment with bentwood and veneers in furniture. In 1842, Thonet was invited to Vienna by the Chancellor of Austria to do some of the furniture for the Palais Liechtenstein. His work was still very experimental at this point but displayed an innovative spirit which attracted the Chancellor. Despite being invited to become the official furniture designer to the throne of Austria, Thonet chose to remain independent. Cabinet making is the practice of utilizing many woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture. ... Furniture - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... This article is about the city and federal state in Austria. ... Furniture - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... This article is about royal thrones, for the order of angels by the same name see Thrones. ...

He had set his sights on a larger audience. Thonet set up his own company in the furniture trade, Gebrüder Thonet, with his five sons and apprentices in the furniture trade in 1853. By 1856, he had perfected his technique and prepared for mass production through opening his own factory in Vienna. He designed the factory himself. Success quickly followed, so much so that Thonet soon had to open another factory. This time the factory was located at Koritschan, in the modern day Czech Republic. This factory was situated close to a large beechwood forest, as well as a supply of cheap labour. Moreover, Thonet had streamlined his process even more by this time, reducing production costs all the way through his process. The beechwood forest eliminated the need for costly wood importation. An audience is the/a group of people who participate in and experience or encounter a work of art, literature, theatre, music or academics in any medium. ... A company in the broadest sense is an aggregation of people who stay together for a common purpose. ... Gebrüder Thonet is a leading European furniture manufacturer based in the German town of Frankenberg. ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... A factory (previously manufactory) is a large industrial building where goods or products are manufactured. ... This article is about the city and federal state in Austria. ...

Although Michael Thonet died in 1871, his designs and production process lived on however, with his sons. By 1913, Gebrüder Thonet employed 6,400 workers and produced 1.8 million pieces of furniture a year. One chair, the No. 14 chair alone sold 40 million copies between 1859 and 1939. 1871 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... A year is the time between two recurrences of an event related to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. ... The most famous chair made by Thonet chair company in 19th century in middle Europe. ...

Thonet's process of production dictated his furniture design. Other designers and producers of his time were using flat wood, with many joints, often ornately hiding the joints through carving and veneers. Thonet focused his work on bending wood. Around the early 1840s, Thonet's process was limited. At this time the only wood bending was used in ship construction. This involved the application of heat and water while the piece was secured in a jig. This process was rarely used in furniture as the wood could not be bent substantially. Thonet began by using thin wood veneers, which are more flexible than solid pieces. He would glue several of these together and place the piece in a jig to dry. This allowed a great level of flexibility in design, but was labour intensive, requiring great care while jigging. Thonet was also limited to bending the wood along only one plane. He experimented further by cutting the already set veneers in another direction, and bending them again, as well as varying the dimensions of the veneers used to try for the maximum in bendablity. Still, costs were too high, and the process too complex for mass production. By the mid 1840's Thonet started twisting his laminated pieces, allowing them to be bent in multiple directions. The wood then is rasped to give a round or oval cross section. Once forms were made, this process lead to the first mass production by Thonet. Carving can mean Rock carving Wood carving Meat carving See also: Sculpture, Lapidary This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Events and Trends First signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) on February 6, 1840 at Waitangi New Zealand. ... This article describes the wood that comprises trees and boards. ... A ship is a large, usually decked watercraft. ... Construction on the North Bytown Bridge in Ottawa, Canada. ... This article is about the folk dance jig, for other meanings, see Jig (disambiguation). ... A solid is a state of matter, characterized by a definite volume and a definite shape (i. ... Historically, glue only refers to protein colloids prepared from animal tissues, such as hide glue, bone glue, or fish glue. ... 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Thonet's experiments continued however, both out of a innovating spirit, and as well as a new economic reason. Thonet's works began to be exported to the Americas, and it was found that the glues used in the veneer process were dissolving in hot, wet tropical climates. After a long period of experimentation, Thonet discovered the solution. A metal strap was secured on one side and both ends of a solid piece of wood. Then both the metal frame and wood were bent as one piece, in a single operation. The metal strap would stretch marginally, thereby forcing all the fibers of the wood to compress and not crack. This solution further streamlined the process, reduced costs, production time, and opened a new market, all in one move. Economics (in Greek Οικονομικά) derives from the Greek word Eco(οίκω=house) and nemo(νέμω=distribute) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources through measurable variables. ... The tropics are the geographic region of the Earth centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the two tropics: the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. ... In chemistry, a metal (Greek: Metallon) is an element that readily forms ions (cations) and has metallic bonds, and it is sometimes said that it is similar to a cation in a cloud of electrons. ... Categories: Disambiguation | Software stubs | Data compression software ... In fluid dynamics, a streamline is the path that an imaginary massless particle would make if it followed the flow of a fluid in which it was embedded. ...

Not only did Thonet innovate in his bentwood, but also his assembly process. Through the use of bentwoods, Thonet eliminated many of the joints in traditional furniture. This gave greater strength to the piece using less material, as well as reducing the amount of fasteners needed. Furthermore, Thonet's furniture jigs created pieces so accurately time and time again, that his pieces were interchangeable.

The impact of Thonet was extraordinary and far reaching. Thonet affected the business of furniture, the avant-garde art establishment, and the design process of many products, from his own day to the present. Thonet developed the mass production techniques of bentwood furniture, but was not the only one to employ them. Soon after his original patents expired, plenty of imitators emerged. In the 1890's over 50 bentwood furniture makers were in business, however none were able to challenge Thonet's dominance of innovation. As far as production numbers, his #14 bistro chair remains one of the most produced chairs in history, still being produced today by Gebrüder Thonet. A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or applicant for a limited amount of time (normally maximum 20 years from the filing date, depending on extension). ... For the meaning of the word dominance in genetics, please see Dominance relationship Dominance in the context of biology and anthropology is the state of having high social status relative to other individuals, who react submissively to dominant individuals. ...

With figures like this, his business impact was an amazing success. Artistically he also impacted greatly. From the art nouveau appearance of his rocking chairs, to the modernist simplicity of the #14 bistro chair, he was far ahead of his time. Alfons Mucha, lithographed poster, 1898 Art Nouveau (French for New art) is an art and design style that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century. ... This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ...

Despite the resemblance to later artistic movements, Thonet allowed his process and market to drive his design, but that is not to say that these later movements did not draw upon his work. Auguste Renoir sketched out a Thonet rocking chair in 1883. Toulouse Lautrec, an art nouveau era artist, used Thonet furniture in the background of many of his works. Pablo Picasso had a Thonet in his studio. Finally, the Swiss modernist architect Le Corbusier used Thonet furniture extensively in his early buildings, stating how thoroughly they represented the modernist concepts of economy, durability and humbleness. In every era to follow, Thonet's work has remained a work of art, yet also accepted by the mainstream public. The Mona Lisa Although today the word art usually refers to the visual arts, the concept of what art is has continuously changed over centuries. ... Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841 _ December 3, 1919) was a preeminent French painter. ... Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (November 24, 1864 - September 9, 1901) was a French painter. ... A young Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso, formally Pablo Ruiz Picasso, (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was one of the recognized masters of 20th century art. ... The Villa Savoye near Paris Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887–August 27, 1965) was a Swiss architect famous for what is now called the International style, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Theo van Doesburg. ...

References

• Buchwald, Hans H. Form from Process - The Thonet Chair. Cambridge: Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 1967.
• Danko, Peter. Thoughts on Thonet - "Fine Woodworking" January/February 1985: 112-114.
• Del Ducca, Giuseppe. Michael Thonet. 9 November 1999. [1]  (http://www.aspide.it/il_legno/arte/thonet/MThonet.html) (11/9/99)
• "Galerie Thonet." Galerie Thonet. 8 November 1999. [2] (http://home.rhein-zeitung.de/~rthillma) (11/8/99)
• Labelart WebPage design. Thonet Vienna-Chair No. 14. 9 November 1999. [3]  (http://labelart-at.com/museumproducts/thonet.htm)
• Reider, William. Antiques: Bentwood Furniture. Architectural Digest August 1996: 106-111.
• Thonet. American Craft December 1990: 42-45.
• Thonet. Gebrüder Thonet GmbH. (11/9/99)