Cesca™ Stool by Knoll
designed by Marcel Breuer
At Bauhaus, Marcel Breuer married traditional craftsmanship with industrial methods and materials to help make tubular steel furniture an international sensation and a modern institution. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, Knoll has taken the Cesca Chair to new heights—specifically bar and counter.
After completing the Wassily, Breuer felt that the potential grace of the material was not yet fully exploited. The Wassily design was very much influenced by the constructivist theories of the Dutch De Stjil movement. A familiar form — in this case the classic club chair — reduced to its elemental lines and planes. The result was an overlapping, dense arrangement of leather and tubing. For the Cesca chairs Breuer sought to better celebrate the new material. An attempt to reduce visual noise led him to the continuous line of steel supporting a cantilevered seat — one of the most copied concepts in 20th century furniture.
Construction and Details
- Seat and back are solid beech with either a clear natural lacquer or matte ebonized finish and woven cane insets
- Frame is 1” diameter chrome-plated round steel tube with a polished finish
- Plastic glides protect the floor and prevent the stool from tipping forward
- The KnollStudio logo and signature of Marcel Breuer are stamped into the base of the chair
About the Designer
Marcel Breuer
A champion of the modern movement and protégé of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer is equally celebrated for his achievements in architecture and furniture. Breuer was a student and subsequently a master carpenter at the Bauhaus in the early 1920s. His entire body of work, both architecture and furniture, embodies the driving Bauhaus objective to reconcile art and industry. While at the Bauhaus, Breuer revolutionized the modern interior with his tubular-steel furniture collection — inspired by bicycle construction and fabricated using the techniques of local plumbers. His first designs, including the Wassily, remain among the most identifiable icons of the modern furniture movement.
