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We could rename them the fast chair and the slow chair, we are talking about two cornerstones of classic and timeless furniture, the famous chair produced by Thonet Brothers (the No. 14) and the legendary chair Campanino of Chiavari. Both produced for the first time in the 19th century - the Chiavari chair in the first decade of the century and chair no. 14 in 1859 - they were the result of the gradual spread of international trade in Europe following different paths and meeting at some crossroads.
The Viennese chair par excellence takes its name from the company founded by Michael Thonet (1796-1871) around 1819 but was most likely designed by one of his sons, August Thonet (1859-1910) in 1859. The idea of the Thonet was to streamline the production process by lowering costs and time of furniture manufacturing to offer to the European bourgeoisie cheap and beautiful furnishings. Thus, using the technique of curved beech wood, the Thonets were able to produce identical and "pre-packaged" modules to which they applied some decorative variations such as the decoration of legs and backs. Chair No. 14 had a boundless success with an average annual production of 230,000 until the early '900.
It can be called the fast chair because it was designed, like the rest of the furniture produced by Gebrüder Thonet, to cover an extremely effective and efficient sales strategy. The clientele was not limited to the private sector, the chairs were offered with unbeatable delivery times also to bars, cafes, and restaurants. The chair consisted of 6 parts in curved beech wood plus the hardware and was shipped disassembled for easy assembly by distributors in major European cities. This structural approach made it possible to transport 36 disassembled Thonet chairs with a packaging that occupied about 1 cubic meter and that, among other things, did not attract the attention of customs controls. In short, an industrial design project from A to Z, perhaps the first successful one known to us.
The chair of Chiavari, on the other hand, was born 50 years earlier thanks to the entrepreneurial initiative of marquis Stefano Rivarola, who in 1807 came back from Paris with some chairs that had impressed him for their elegance. He proposed them, as a model, to some of the best artisans of Chiavari, thus offering the first inspiration to the best cabinet-maker of the city, Giuseppe Gaetano Descalzi (1767-1855) called "il Campanino". Not content to copy an object already made, the Ligurian craftsman set out to create a seat that would combine the perfect proportion between solidity, lightness, and elegance. Thus was born a chair with a seat made of woven willow bark with finely turned legs and a rounded stick backrest weighing just 1 kg. Rumors reported that to pass the test of strength Campanino had thrown the chair from the second floor of his house and the seat had bounced without breaking.
The Campanino, named in honor of Descalzi who came from a family of bell makers, is still one of the icons of Italian craftsmanship and, although there are some variations, its structure has remained intact. It is a slow product because it was created by waiting for the wood to mature naturally (at least 1 year for every centimeter of thickness); because its seat is still hand-stuffed by skilled straw makers in Chiavari who now use slightly different rushes, but with the same compactness to create an elastic and comfortable seat; and because it is a true piece of timeless Italian elegance that continues to be produced by various companies in the Chiavari area as if it were a sartorial suit.
At intOndo we don't have a favorite between the two, what we really like is their timeless design, their elegance, and most of all their history so different, but equally rich in flavor.
