Model 737 Chairs by Peter Maly for Thonet, 1990s Set of 4

Born in 1936 in Trutnov (in what is now the Czech Republic), German furniture designer Peter Maly attended Detmold, Germany’s Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences), where he studied interior design and graduated in 1960. He spent the first ten years of his professional career at Schöner Wohnen, where he created photo spreads and proselytized to readers on practical design. Near the coda of this editorial work, Maly began to freelance design; among his first proposals were his Serie 1 collection of living room items for Tecta (1967) and his Trinom seating family for Cor (1959). 

In 1970, Maly founded his eponymous design studio in Hamburg, focusing his efforts primarily toward living room and bedroom furniture. Among his first clients was German manufacturer Interlübke, for whom he proposed his Mutaro Chest of Drawers with leather handles (1979) as part of a firm-wide competition. The winning entry, Mutaro sold prolifically for Interlübke. Maly further contributed to the brand’s catalogue with the textile collections Melange (1983) and Graphis (1984), alongside the commercially-successful cabinet system Duo (1983). 

Around the same time, Maly began design work for Ligne Roset. His debut Peter Maly Bed (1983)—a Ligne Roset bestseller that’s still produced today—endures as an exemplar of Maly’s signature: a blend of Bauhaus geometry with the pared-down functionalism of his Danish modernist heroes, Arne Jacobsen, Hans J. Wegner, and Verner Panton. Into the 1980s, Maly continued to swell out his Ligne Roset oeuvre in this timelessly modern vein; a particular standout includes his modular Prao Sofa (1985), which features armrests and a back that can be removed and adjusted. 

Maly has remained active in the 21st century, designing collections and stand-alone pieces for Anta, Behr, JAB Ansteoetz, Poliform, Mauser, Thonet, and Tonon, among others. Of late, Maly has collaborated with Japanese manufacturer Conde House. This ongoing work includes his Tosai seating collection (2007) and Hakama Table (2012), which sleekly combine Maly’s European functionalism with traditional Japanese craftsmanship and material.

Maly has been recognized with a number of awards, including the Federal Prize for Good Form in 1985, the Du Pont International Award in 1986, and the Grand Prix de la Critique in Paris in 1989.

Thonet—the oldest surviving furniture company in the world—began its long life in 1819, when cabinetmaker Michael Thonet (1796-1871) established a furniture workshop in Boppard, Germany. A proponent of the Biedermeier style, he specialized in chairs, tables, and storage pieces characterized by clean lines, reduced ornamentation, and an emphasis on functionalist principles. By the 1830s, Thonet’s experiments in laminated and steam-bent wood furniture, like his famous Boppard Chair (1836), brought international acclaim. Thonet’s designs achieved a combination of lightness, durability, and comfort unknown in European furniture at the time.

A great fan of his work, Prince Metternich of Austria invited Thonet to present his designs to the Viennese court in 1842. Finding so much support there, Thonet opened a new company in Vienna in 1849. In 1853, he transferred his company to his sons, and Gebrüder Thonet was established.

Through the second half of the 19th century, Gebrüder Thonet designs grew increasingly popular with the cultural vanguard, especially among progressive design thinkers and tastemakers. One design in particular, the No. 14 Café Chair (ca. 1859), led the way to international success: the chair’s innovative bending technique was well suited to industrial production, and its rationalized, easily assembled structure allowed for efficient packing and shipping. In 1850, Anna Daum famously outfitted her fashionable Viennese café with No. 14 Chairs, and by the 1870s, Gebrüder Thonet had sales offices across Europe and the US. To date, more than 50 million No. 14 Chairs have been sold worldwide–not counting the untold pirated copies.

Iconic pieces from the traditional Gebrüder Thonet collection include Rocking Chair No. 1 (1860), No. 14 Café Chair (ca. 1859), Adolf Loos’s Café Museum Chair (1899), No. 209 Armchair (ca. 1900), Otto Wagner’s No. 247 Postal Savings Bank Chair (1904), and Josef Hoffmann’s No. 811 (1925). In the early years of the 20th century, Gebrüder Thonet also began producing designs in bent tubular steel by Bauhaus masters like Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Mart Stam.

In the aftermath of World War II, Thonet lost all of its production facilities in Eastern Europe, and the sales office at Vienna’s Stephansplatz had been destroyed. Between 1945 and 1953, Georg Thonet, the great-grandson of company founder Michael Thonet, led the rebuilding. Economic success returned quickly. In the ensuing decades, the company commissioned designs from many outstanding designers, such as Verner Panton, Pierre Paulin, Norman Foster, James Irvine, Piero Lissoni, and Stefan Diez. Classic Thonet pieces can be found in museum collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou and Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, and the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

In 1976 Thonet was divided into two separate German and Austrian companies, which remain independent of each other. Today, Thonet GmbH is headquartered in Frankenberg, Germany and continues to manufacture the original, bentwood and tubular steel designs alongside new pieces by contemporary, international architects and designers. Originally opened in 1861 by Thonet himself, the furniture factory TON (Továrna Ohýbaného Nábytku), which is located in what is known today as the Czech Republic, continues to manufacture Thonet designs. 

* All images courtesy of Thonet.de