Marcel Breuer, Cesca armless chair, 1928 (produced 2021), chrome and leather, manufacturer: Knoll, East Greenville, PA, 31 1/2 × 18 1/2 × 23 1/2 inches. Museum purchase, SC2021.02.02. Courtesy Knoll.
The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany as a state-funded art school that embraced the Industrial Revolution and taught craftspeople how to design goods for the home that could be industrially produced and commercially successful.
Marcel Breuer (Pécs, Hungary 1902–1981 New York, NY) first designed the Cesca chair at the Bauhaus in 1927 and soon marketed it through the company Thonet as the Thonet side chair (model B32). When Knoll began to manufacture the chair in 1960, they named it after Breuer’s daughter, Francesca. This chair has been in production for almost 100 years, thereby proving the enduring nature of the modern designs that came out of the Bauhaus.
The Cesca chair can be seen in the photographic reproduction above in use as seating by a student at her desk in the Studies Building at Black Mountain College (BMC). Influence from the Bauhaus that made its way to BMC in the 1930s continues to be felt in design today.
Discover this chair and other furniture in Modernist Design at Black Mountain College through January 24, 2022.
—Whitney Richardson, associate curator
