The Everywhere Chair — Disegno Journal

This is perhaps the biggest challenge for legacy brands such as Tolix. How can you continue to capitalise on the success of your big hit, while testing the market with new designs as a hedge against any future decline in sales? Emeco, producer of the iconic Navy Chair, is in a similar situation. Over the past few years, it has either commissioned small updates to its classic chair, such as Jasper Morrison’s upholstered Navy Officer, or else completely new designs from the likes of Barber Osgerby, Naoto Fukasawa and Norman Foster. Again, Gebrüder Thonet provide an early precedent. Although models such as the Thonet 14, designed in 1859, continued to be bestsellers for decades, by the turn of the 20th century the company had begun inviting Viennese designers to add to its catalogue, commissioning Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and Josef Hoffmann. In the late 20s, Thonet took an even bolder step by swapping beechwood for tubular steel and producing some of the most iconic furniture pieces of the modern movement, including Marcel Breuer’s B32 and B33 chairs, Mies van der Rohe’s MR Chair, and the Chaise Longue by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand.

With these challenges in mind, I mentioned to Schindler my interest in visiting the Tolix factory to see how the chairs are made, and how the enterprise works today. Both him and Andriot, who was also present at the stand, happily obliged. We set a date for two weeks.

***

The Tolix factory is situated in an industrial park on the outskirts of Autun, a small city nestled in the hills of Burgundy with charming Roman ruins and a medieval cathedral. The factory itself is modestly sized. When Andriot took over the company, she was working with just 20 employees, but has grown it to 65 employees since then. A lot of effort went into modernising the machinery, and the factory was retrofitted to meet high environmental standards. All of this shows. When I go on a tour of the shop floor, I see a clean, well-organised space, neatly divided into workstations that correspond to the manufacturing process. There are five different components: the legs; an X-brace; the seat; the back; and a tubular steel back frame. After the sheet metal is cut, the parts go to various stations to be pressed into form. This is more laborious than I expected. The legs themselves require 12 different stamping processes to get their distinctive shape. After this, the parts are spot-welded together, buffed and painted. Everything is made to order, customisable to a degree in terms of colours, finishes, and varnishes, as well as the occasional addition of words, logos or patterns, which has been important for the business.