Bauhaus Museum

Keeping tubular steel on trend: Thonet meets Bauhaus Dessau

The Bauhaus Museum in Dessau opened in 2019 and houses the second largest Bauhaus collection in the world. It is also a place where the Bauhaus legacy is brought to life, presented to the public and reimagined. Located in the centre of Dessau, the museum resembles a bar of concrete that appears to float inside a glass envelope. Together with the Masters’ Houses and the historical Bauhaus Building – both UNESCO World Heritage sites in their own right – it bears witness to the appeal and relevance of modern design. The museum building was designed by addenda architects, a Barcelona-based firm that won the internationally tendered contract in 2015. Today, both the Museum and the Prellerhaus, which is home to the studios of the Bauhaus Building, contain various Thonet tubular steel pieces whose roots are closely intertwined with the history of the Bauhaus movement in Dessau. The diversity of these pieces demonstrates the lasting effect of this history into the present day and how it continues to shape contemporary aesthetics.

Starting in September 2025, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation will be marking its anniversary year with artistic events, exhibitions, conferences and celebrations. These will showcase the materials used in Bauhaus design both during the Modernism movement and in the current day. 

Tubular steel furniture in the Prellerhaus

The Prellerhaus studios, an integral part of the historical Bauhaus rooms, are still furnished with Thonet tubular steel pieces as they were conceived by Marcel Breuer 100 years ago. Working with a master metalworker from Junkers, Breuer experimented in the aircraft builder’s test workshop, producing the first domestic tubular steel furniture, including the B 9 stool. Up until that point, using this cold, industrial material in residential settings would have been inconceivable. 

At the same time that Marcel Breuer was working with tubular steel, Mart Stam was also trying out designs with gas piping, which he connected using angled pieces. Their experiments resulted in the first cantilevered chairs, which combined a clear, simple form with the functional effect of a flexible seat. The S 43 F model that furnishes the Prellerhaus is a version of the minimalist cantilever chair with the addition of armrests. With its well-defined aesthetic, this piece is synonymous with Modernism. The Prellerhaus now serves as a guesthouse offering overnight accommodation. Previously, the 28 studios of the Bauhaus Building – each around 24 square metres in size – served as a place for students to live and work.

Conference seating in the Dessau Bauhaus Museum

In the museum’s lecture theatre and its smaller meeting rooms, the S 160 SPF by Delphin Design has been used instead of the traditional S 43 F. The S 160 SPF is a contemporary tubular steel chair with a polypropylene shell, reproducing the original minimalist, functional aesthetic in a modern material. The chairs can be connected together to save space using a patented, tool-free linking system. Up to 17 chairs can be stacked, which allows the rooms to be used flexibly. In the Bauhaus, the chair is highly appreciated both for its functionality as well as its simplicity, which allows the events themselves to be the centre of attention.

B 9 H special edition by Jay Gard

During his residency as part of the Bauhaus centenary in 2019, designer Jay Gard was asked by the Museum to produce a special edition B 9 stool. When it was first conceived, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer themselves argued over whether the stool was an item meant for mass production or rather an artistic design. Jay Gard took his inspiration from a hand-woven nursery carpet designed by Margaretha “Grete” Reichardt, an important designer to emerge from the Bauhaus weaving workshop. Gard extracted the colours from this carpet and combined them into 100 different variants of the B 9 stool, which have been used for visitor seating in the Bauhaus Museum ever since. The interplay of Breuer’s design, Reichardt’s colours and Gard’s interpretation has resulted in a dynamic work of art that raises the age-old question of individual authorship.