Original Wassily B3 Chair. Pair. By Gavina For Marcel Breuer. Brown Tan Leather And Chrome Bauhaus Lounge Club Accent Chairs.

We are delighted to offer this fabulous original pair of Wassily B3 lounge chairs by Gavina of Italy.

Important To Note:

This a very high quality pair of original Wassily B3 chairs. It’s super important not to compare these with the plethora of lightweight options found all too often on-line. The difference between these premium chairs and the lightweight replicas masquerading as “original “ is like that of night and day. We politely urge you to not be fooled into buying low cost, lightweight poor quality versions as we are certain you will be disappointed. This pair of chairs are the Rolls Royce of the Wassily B3’s, in fact these B3’s are without question the very best pair of authentic vintage Wassily B3 chairs that we have happened upon in the many successful years of finding and providing premium Bauhaus furniture. This pair of chairs have it all, first class condition, deep warm colour, patination and provenance.

Please do take a moment to evaluate how superior they are in colour when compared to other offerings. The wonderfully deep rich tan leather will compliment modern and classic interiors and it is this fact amongst others that make them, highly sought after. Chairs of this quality are in very short supply. One only has to stand next to these chairs to see and feel their wonderful room presence. The warm glow of the leather, the subtle signs of light use yet they remain in first class condition with zero corrosion which you will often find on the lightweight versions.

This pair of chairs have just arrived to the UK following our Winter 2022 buying trip in and around Rome, Italy. These chairs have spent their entire life within an architects studio/office. They were purchased by the grandfather of the most recent owner from Gavina Spa sometime between 1955 and 1965. They are in truly fabulous condition

About Gavina Spa

Dino Gavina is best known for founding Gavina SpA, an Italian furniture production company established to manufacture the work of designers from the burgeoning Italian design scene of the 1950s and 60s. Gavina was an early producer of work by many influential Italian modernists, including the Castiglioni brothers, Carlo and Tobia Scarpa, Cini Boeri, Roberto Sebastian Matta, Vico Magistretti and Mario Bellini. Despite being a dedicated supporter of modern design, ultimately Gavina lacked the bookkeeping and business skills to prevent his company’s bankruptcy.
Interested in Gavina’s portfolio of designs and manufacturing facilities, Knoll bought the bankrupt company in 1968. Perhaps the most attractive aspect of the acquisition was the rights to Marcel Breuer’s Cesca, Wassily, and Laccio chairs and tables, which Dino Gavina had secured from Breuer some years earlier. For the next decade the Knoll catalog featured many designs from members of the so-called Gavina Group.

History of the Wassily B3 and their designer, Marcel Breuer.

First a student then a teacher at the Bauhaus, Marcel Breuer designed many innovative pieces. His Wassily chair is the most iconic.

Hungarian-American architect Marcel Breuer was known for his innovative furniture design and use of tubular steel. Though he created many pieces of furniture in his time, the Wassily chair is his most iconic piece. The chair was designed in 1925, inspired by a bicycle frame. It is made of curving tubes of steel and leather slings that create a seat that is ergonomic and comfortable, yet still highly sculptural and minimal in form.

Also known as the Model B3, the chair was named Wassily some years after its conception by an Italian manufacturer who heard that Wassily Kandinsky (who also taught at the Bauhaus) had admired the prototype and recieved a handmade version from Breuer. The form of the chair was inspired by an Adler bicycle. Breuer liked the look of the tubular frame, and wanted to use the cycle’s system to recreate the classic club chair, reducing it to its purest form.

With its uniquely exposed structure, the chair came to represent how the modern design style could be applied to everyday objects.

A brief history of the Bauhaus

Breuer’s influence in the world of design was wide: he designed at all scales, from kitchen utensils to buildings, to furniture. His furniture was minimal in form – sometimes it seemed almost weightless – and inspired many contemporary designers to follow suit. Breuer’s most famous architectural commission was the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, completed in 1966.
Breuer’s philosophies as a designer were closely linked to his time at the Bauhaus school of art and design, were he was first a student and then a teacher. During his time as a teacher there, he pursued new technologies that would enable him to make more flexible furniture. Breuer left Europe during World War II, like many of his colleagues from the Bauhaus. He went to Harvard with his Bauhaus mentor Walter Gropius and became one of the Harvard 5, a group of architects that also comprised Philip Johnson, Eliot Noyes, Landis Gores and John M. Johansen.
Breuer’s B32 chair brought him more attention than the Wassily at the time of its release. This was a cantilevered chair, also with a tubular steel frame which was bent into shape. Breuer revealed the B32 in 1926 just after Mies Van der Rohe and Mart Sam had revealed cantilevered versions of chair designs themselves. The B32 was very lightweight and took up very little space.
The Wassily chair remains an icon of modernism today.

Width
79.0 cm

Height
72.0 cm

Depth
70.0 cm