- [Instructor] The furniture and cabinet making workshop
was one of the most popular at the Bauhaus.
Under the direction of Marcel Breuer, from 1924-1928,
this studio reinvented what furniture was,
how is can be used, and how it was made.
As in architecture, the goal was to challenge conventional
forms such as chairs, and eliminate decoration and form
to minimal needs.
Breuer believed that chairs would become obsolete
at some point in the future, when technology would allow us
to sit supported by columns of air.
Inspired by the steel tubing of his bicycle,
he experimented with metal furniture, creating light
weight metal chairs.
The final goal was to mass produce these for use in all
houses of the average man and woman.
These chairs were used throughout the Dessau school,
and in the theatre of the building.
The furniture workshop stressed the ideas of modernism,
truth in materials, economy of means, good design
for the masses, and form follows function.
The results however, often proved to be focused more on form
rather than function.
In the exploration of abstract compositions of planes,
volumes, color, and materials, many pieces were beautiful,
but rather uncomfortable or hard to use.
The idea that these pieces would be produced in large
quantities, to be sold at inexpensive costs to the masses,
also proved impossible.
Each piece typically was handmade, and that only rich
creative class German citizens could afford.
The Wassily chair is probably the most famous piece
of furniture from the Bauhaus.
Designed in 1925 by Marcel Breuer, this chair is an
excellent example of simplicity of form, truth in materials,
and innovative use of materials.
While still being an apprentice at the Bauhaus,
Breuer designed this iconic chair inspired
by his bicycle frame.
He combined this manufacturing technique with the functional
needs of a chair.
The combination of these new materials created physical
endurance, and maximum comfort.
Another Breuer design is a Cantilever chair,
designed in 1927.
It also uses tubular steel, and reveals it's construction.
It was revolutionary, abandoning the traditional
construction of four legs on a chair.
The Cesca chair was his greatest commercial success.
Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich designed
the Barcelona chair.
It was initially created for the German Pavilion
at the international exhibition of 1929 in Barcelona.
The frame of the chair was designed to be bolted together,
but it was later redesigned to feature a seamless
piece of metal.
Although the majority of the Bauhaus pieces were created
for the common man, the Barcelona chair proved
incredibly expensive to produce.
The goal of mass produced, inexpensive, and ubiquitous
furniture continued after the closing of the Bauhaus.
While furniture makers in the United States such as
Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and George Nelson
followed the Bauhaus philosophy, they never achieved the
goal of producing an inexpensive
and easy to transport chair.
That goal was reached in 1967, when the Monobloc chair
went into production.
Costing about three dollars to produce, the Monobloc
chair may be the most common and popular chair in the world.