The Wassily Chair, also known as the Model B3 chair, was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925-1926 while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany. The design inspiration was to create a piece of furniture from lightweight nickel plated bent tubular steel, and mass-produced as easily as the bicycle of the time. Its breakthrough paved the way for other craftsmen to incorporate tubular steel into their designs. The sitter appears to be floating in midair. What makes it iconic is its revolutionary silhouette is a classic symbol of modernism.   Reminiscent of a generous English club chair, the seat and back juxtapose hard cold metal with this soft, pliable leather.

Despite popular belief, the chair was not designed for the painter Wassily Kandinsky, who was on the Bauhaus faculty at the same time. Kandinsky admired the completed design, and Breuer fabricated a duplicate for Kandinsky’s quarters. The chair became known as “Wassily” decades later when the original manufacturer, Gavina SpA learned of the anecdotal Kandinsky connection during its research on the chair’s origins.