The KS 41g armchair model is based on a prototype from the workshops of the Standard Möbel company. When the company was bought by Thonet in April 1929, the prototype remained with Anton Lorenz, former executive director of Standard Möbel. It inspired Marcel Breuer’s Thonet model B 34 and served as the basis for Lorenz’s KS 41g from the product range of his new company Desta. A dispute erupted when both Breuer and Lorenz took credit for the creation of the prototype.
Typical of Lorenz’ designs, the KS 41g features a continuous closed tube for the seat and backrest. It is anchored in the supporting structure, whose simple form dispenses with back legs. The front edge of the seat, as already seen in the prototype, is bent back by 180 degrees at knee-height, so that a seated person does not come into contact with the tubular steel itself. It is well established that Marcel Breuer never used this kind of bending, while Lorenz actually took out a patent for it in 1929. The solution itself, meanwhile, was hardly innovative: The Rasch brothers had already used it in 1927, but neglected to have it patented.
Text: Otakar Máčel
