Cantilever Chair S32 (Ash) by Mart Stam for Thonet

The Dutch architect and designer Mart Stam (1899-1986) first trained as a carpenter and drawing teacher and then worked in architecture offices in the Netherlands, Berlin and Switzerland, including those of Max Taut and Hans Poelzig. In 1926 he developed from gas pipes the first cantilevered tubular steel chair without back legs, which Thonet produced in series in Vienna as the S 33 (without armrests) and S 34 (with armrests); the design caused a sensation in 1927 at the Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart. In 1928/29 Stam was a visiting lecturer at the Bauhaus Dessau, and between 1930 and 1934 he worked on urban planning in the Soviet Union as a member of the "Brigade May". After 1945 he headed art academies in Dresden and Berlin-Weißensee before returning to the Netherlands in 1953.