How 36 café chairs fit into one box

A round seat and two wooden curves forming the back: the outline is familiar from cafés. Thonet introduced the No. 14 chair in 1859; today it is known as the 214. Its light-looking shape comes from a method of bending steamed solid wood.

Earlier experiments used laminated wood. Glued joints, however, could come apart in tropical humidity. Michael Thonet continued developing a method that bent solid wood, receiving a patent in 1856. The process made curves without building them up from glued layers.

Steam makes the wood pliable. A metal band supports the outside of the bend, where the wood is under tension. Two workers bend the piece around a mold, and it dries in that shape. A smooth curve begins with heat, a restraint, and coordinated hands.

The chair's parts are joined with screws rather than glue. A ring links the legs below the seat to reduce wobbling. The rear legs are thicker where they meet the seat and carry greater stress; the back becomes thinner where more flexibility is needed. The wood changes in section according to its work.

The chair could be taken apart into six main components. Thirty-six disassembled chairs fitted in a one-cubic-meter box and could be assembled without glue at their destination. Curved wood made a recognizable silhouette, while the separable parts made that silhouette easier to send around the world.

The bending method also appeared in rocking chairs, table legs, and coat stands. Combining straight and bent pieces of different lengths produced different objects, while shared processes supported divided labor and standardized parts. Thonet still describes steam bending with two workers today: behind the familiar café chair is a manufacturing technique carried forward through repeated hands-on work.