Bentwood Furniture

The MAK holds one of the world’s largest museum collections of bentwood furniture, primarily created by the Thonet company, but also by competing firms such as J. & J. Kohn and Fischel. The foundation of this collection was laid in the late 1960s with a donation of 40 objects from the Bundeskammer der gewerblichen Wirtschaft (Federal Chamber of Commerce). At the end of the 1980s, another 70 pieces of bentwood furniture were acquired from a German private collection. Since then, the MAK’s holdings have been repeatedly expanded through acquisitions or donations and today provide a unique overview of the technological, typological and aesthetic developments of modern bentwood furniture from its beginnings in the 1830s to the present day.