Michael Thonet

Michael Thonet (2 July 1796 — 3 March 1871) was a German-Austrian cabinet maker.

In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats. His first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl (Boppard layerwood chair) in 1836. Thonet gained substantial independence by acquiring the Michelsmühle, the glue factory that made the glue for this process, in 1837. However, his attempts to patent the technology failed in Germany(1840) as well as in Great Britain, France and Russia(1841).

Thonet's essential breakthrough was his success in having light, strong wood bent into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design entirely novel, elegant, lightweight, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly to fashion - a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past - and whose aesthetic and functional appeal remains to this day.

As Michael Thonet died 1871 in Vienna, the Fa. Gebruder Thonet had sales locations across Europe as well as Chicago and New York. Today, a museum in the factory in Frankenberg, Heese showcases the firm's history and the Thonet design.