Cesca chair - designed by Marcel Breuer, 1928 - Made by Knoll

Cesca chair with chromed steel frame, solid beech painted black and machine woven cane seat and back rest.

The Cesca Chair has a rare, almost innocuous, simplicity to its design — linearity balanced by subtle curves; wicker caning punctuated by a wooden frame; and a cantilevered form that seems to float in thin air. Coincidentally, the story of Cesca, a chair we often recognise without realising the importance of the original design, is one of radical design thinking.

The Cesca is inherently tied to the material innovation and design principles Breuer formed at the German design school the Bauhaus. In adherence to the institution’s rationalist ideals, Breuer sought a material suitable for mass production that could also render an artful furniture form.

Breuer found inspiration in an unlikely place, the tubular steel construction of the bicycle he rode around Dessau. The material was lightweight, sturdy and malleable enough to create the Modernist furniture he envisioned. After iteration upon iteration, bending and welding tubular steel, Breuer arrived at the Wassily Chair and Laccio Table, both designed in 1925, followed by the Cesca Chair in 1928. 

Originally known as the B32 but later renamed “the Cesca” after Breuer’s daughter, Francesca, the chair’s revelatory use of material and simple form made it an international sensation and unlike anything else that existed at the time. Quite simply Breuer simply changed the course of 20th-century furniture. 

Informed by the principles of the Bauhaus and the designer's revolutionary innovations in material, the simple, yet outstanding, design resonates just as much as it did over ninety years ago.

We love this chair. It's tantalising simplicity yet robust visuals allow it to sit comfortably with almost any dining table, marble, steel, dark or light wood, or as an elegant statement in the hall or bedroom.

Dimensions: 46cm W x 58cm D x 80cm H, with a seat height of 46cm.