First presented in Milan 2023, the softly rounded Luftballon collection designed by Vatler Cagna for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna is inspired by the voluminous contours of a balloon. Carefully balanced in size and proportion, the armchair and sofa are quirky and full of personality, with sinuous lines and soft curves distinguished by large sculptural cushions. The range highlights the company’s ancestral know-how, its punchy colours adding a contemporary layer to the traditional blonde or dark-stained wood.
Further embracing colour, last year Gebrüder Thonet Vienna began a collaboration with Paris-based designer and architect, India Mahdavi, whose emblematic forms push the possibilities of wood: first with the Loop dining chair and sofa, its coiling armrests defining the chair's form, and now with the new Mickey armchair, released during the Milan Furniture Fair this year.
From her studio on rue Las Cases in Paris, India Mahdavi has established an international reputation for diverse projects across architecture, interior design, scenography, furniture and object design. Vibrant colour and fluid form offset by subtle humour, are brought to life via a cross-cultural art de vivre. It's a unique vocabulary that is both joyful and elegant all at the same time.
Responding to an invitation from the historic company, Mahdavi's latest design is a piece she describes as an echo of her 'childhood heroes'.
Gebrüder Thonet Vienna is the only manufacturer in the world that enables you to translate a free hand drawing by giving it a wooden materiality of that quality', Mahdavi remarked at the design's launch in Milan.
About Gebrüder Thonet Vienna
Gebrüder Thonet Vienna is part of a great European history that merges tradition and innovation, renewing its style lines through continuous project research. Gebrüder Thonet Vienna is a protagonist in the critical passage from craftsmanship to industry, thanks to an approach which anticipates modern design and has contributed to the definition of the contemporary visual grammar.
