B3 Club Chair (Wassily Chair) by Marcel Breuer, 1925

• Designed By - Marcel Breuer
• When - 1925
• Made From - Bars of chrome plated tubular steel and strips of black leather
• Manufactured By - Thonet
• More Info - This is the best and most well-known example of Breuer’s revolutionary tubular steel furniture. It is a re-working of the traditional club chair so it was originally called the B3 Club Chair but then later become known as the Wassily chair after the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky gave the design his approval. It was the first ever chair to have a bent steel frame and was inspired by the curved tubular steel handle bars on Breuer’s ‘Adler’ bicycle. The prototypes were produced with the help of a plumber to do the welding. He had to use steel tubes that did not have a seam so that they did not break when bent. The strips of fabric are carefully arranged so the body never comes into contact with the cold metal. Breuer said ‘when I saw the completion of my steel chair, I thought that of all my  works, this would  attract the most criticism. It is the most extreme in its outward appearance and material expression; it is the least artistic, the most logical, the most ‘liveable’, the most machine-like. What happened was the opposite of what I expected’. It is now one of the most famous 20th century chairs and is a modernistic icon. The Wassily Chair is a timeless design and is still in production now. It looks functional and stylish and is often seen in offices and showrooms.