* set of eight chairs: 2 arm chairs and 6 side chairs

* leather and tubing are in excellent condition except for a few minor scratches in tubular painting

* black bonded leather is pulled taut over the frame to create the seat and backrest

* accent stitching in white

* black plastic sliding stabilizers eliminate floor marking

* curved steel seat supports

* chair design is a simplification of the Mart Stam cantilever arm chairs of 1929

* made in Italy

* 21 inches x 22 inches wide x 31 inches high

* seat height 18 inches

* arm height 25.5 inches

Origin of Design

The Dutch architect and designer Mart Stam trained at the Rijksnormaalschool voor Tekenonderwijs in Amsterdam, and then spent the years between 1919 and 1925 working in a succession of architectural practices. Stam's reputation as a chair designer rests almost exclusively on his one design, the first tubular steel cantilever chair. The idea originated from a chair made for his wife from straight lengths of tube and gas-fitter's L joints, which he described to his fellow collaborators in the Stuttgart Weissenhofsiedlung exhibition at a preliminary conference in November 1926. Excited by the interest which the idea aroused, both Stam and Mies van der Rohe went away and produced cantilever chair designs within weeks of each other, although it was Mies who managed to get the patent for the principle of the resilient cantilever structure. Stam believed that 'it would be wrong to design chairs larger or heavier than they need be, or for reasons of display. All they do is meet our requirements, that is to say, they should be light and mobile. The S 33, with its economical use of materials and reductive simplicity, is both functional and elegant and a perfect expression of these principles.


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Reproductions