Spy, 2019

For his contribution to the Thonet Re-Imagined project, Tobias Rehberger draws on the iconic features of the classic Coffee House Chair No. 14, reinterpreting them in an exaggerated and unexpected form as a lamp. The elegant curves of the chair’s backrest are transformed into a free-flowing loop of bentwood – though in reality, the loop is not bent at all, but meticulously assembled from numerous CNC-milled components. What appears at first glance to be a playful homage to handcrafted design is in fact the result of a highly technological production process, one that departs entirely from traditional bentwood techniques.