Mod. A900F Armchair by Norman Foster for Thonet, 1999

With over 250 projects in 40 countries around the world, the extremely prolific Lord Norman Robert Foster (b.1935) is arguably the most successful architect of our time. Often (and increasingly) driven by a sustainable approach, his designs will doubtlessly have a lasting impact for generations to come.

Foster was born into a working class family and raised in the industrial city of Manchester, England. From an early age he exhibited an interest in architecture, drawing inspiration from his hometown, as well as from his idols Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Foster studied at the School of Architecture and City Planning at the University of Manchester (g.1961) and subsequently at Yale University, where he obtained his Master’s degree in Architecture. During his time at Yale, Foster was exposed to architects Paul Rudolph (1918-1997), Serge Chermayeff (1900-1996), and Vincent Scully (b. 1920), who all had an influence on his work throughout his career.

In 1963, Foster, together with Su Brumwell, Wendy Cheesman, and Richard Rogers—whom he met during his time at Yale—founded the architectural practice Team 4 and soon gained recognition for high-tech design. In 1967, after Team 4 had disbanded, Foster and wife Wendy Cheesman (d. 1989) founded Foster Associates in London, which is now known as Foster + Partners. In the mid-1970s, the firm gained international acclaim with its design for the Willis Facer and Dumas headquarters (constructed between 1970 and 1975) in Ipswich, England. Foster’s sustainable design included an open-plan concept that was radical for its time.

Foster had a very fruitful partnership with architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, which lasted from 1968 until Fuller’s death in 1983. They collaborated on several projects that focused specifically on environmental awareness, including the Samuel Beckett Theatre project (1971) in Oxford. By rewriting strict architectural standards into more “green” or bio-friendly terms, Foster paved the way for a new genre of environmental architecture. Using natural resources, such as light and ventilation—alongside celebrating the quality of life within the spaces—Foster is a master of using technology as a means, not an end.

His well-known projects include the Millennium Tower in Japan (1989); the Reichstag in Berlin (1992-1999); 30 St. Mary Ace in London, known colloquially as the London Gherkin (1997-2004); the Great Court at the British Museum in London (1994-2000); and the World Trade Center in New York (2002). Beyond Foster’s many architectural accomplishments, he also maintains a successful career in furniture design, with standouts like Nomos Table (1987) for Tecno, Airline Seating System (1999) for Vitra, 505 Sofa and Table Series (2002) for Walter Knoll, RF1 Stacking Chair (2006) for Randers, and the Teso Table (2013) for Molteni.

Over the course of his illustrious career, Foster has received many awards and accolades, including the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture (1983), the Gold Medal of the Academy of Architecture of France (1991), the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (1994), the 21st Pritzker Architect Prize Laureate (1999), and the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts (2009). He was knighted by the Queen of England in 1990 and given the title ‘Lord Foster of Thames Bank’ in 1999.

Today, Foster + Partners’ work spans a wide array of projects, from urban masterplans and public infrastructure to private housing and furniture design. If you are curious to hear more about Foster’s own thoughts on the future of design, check out his TED Talk for the 2007 DLD Conference in Munich, titled Norman Foster: My Green Agenda for Architecture. Here he discusses how architects can use computers to create pollution-free design. 

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