Design moment – No 14: the Thonet chair c. 1859

Memories of the much-missed old Bewley’s cafes include their bentwood chairs which, though light to lift and economical spacewise, were clearly sturdy enough to withstand generations of customers.

When Ernest Bewley refurbished his cafés in the 1920s, he was following a solid European coffee house trend by choosing bentwood chairs.

Years earlier in the mid-19th century, the German born furniture maker Michael Thonet (1796-1871) had finally perfected a way of working with wood which he had been developing for some time. Working with strips of beech, he found he could bend the wood into curved shapes. He was inspired by techniques used by boat builders and barrel makers. His first laminated chairs appeared in 1836, although the strips of wood tend to come apart as the glue melted in heat so he quickly realised solid wood was needed.

Always a technical innovator, Thonet solved the problem by devising and later patenting a technique for mass production with solid wood. The seat in the chair could be solid or made with woven cane or palm.

Determined to make his design economical to export, the chairs came apart and so could be packed in pieces and assembled on arrival, joined together with sturdy screws – another reason he is regarded as a pioneer in industrial design. He made many bentwood chairs but No 14 is regarded as one of the best-selling chairs of the 20th century.

By 1930, an estimated 50 million No 14 chairs had been sold. His design coincided with the growth in tea rooms and informal restaurants and it became so popular it quickly became known as the “bistro chair”.

The No 14 was exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London and in 1867 at the World Exposition in Paris, where it won a gold medal for its design.