You have most likely sat in the No. 14 chair. It’s simple but elegant, and it easily blends with most interiors. This café chair is an icon and is considered to be one of the most successful mass-produced products in the world.

Before designing the No. 14 chair in 1859, Michael Thonet patented his process for making chair parts using bundles of thick wood veneer strips, which were saturated with glue and exposed to heat in wooden molds. The chair was then finished by hand to smooth the surface. This was in 1830, and the material was used to create curved back rails and legs on chairs, contoured headboards for beds, and scrolled arms for sofas. This method was later replaced by an improved process of bending solid wood using steam.

Steam was the literal driver of industrialization; it moved locomotives to transport goods and people, but it also transformed manufacturing. In 1849, having moved to Vienna, Thonet founded the company Gebrüder Thonet with his sons (now known as Gebrüder T 1819 in the U.S. and Canada). He learned how to use steam to bend already-turned solid beechwood to create the No. 14. Bentwood objects are made by wetting wood (either by soaking or steaming), then bending it and letting it harden into curved shapes and patterns. This discovery changed the trajectory of modern furniture design. Without it, we would not have the work of designers like Alvar Aalto or Charles and Ray Eames. Thonet’s chair became the world’s first mass-produced piece of furniture. Fifty million No. 14s were sold between 1859 and 1930.

The No. 14 is composed of six pieces of bentwood (seat frame, legs, backrest stretcher ring), ten screws, and two washers. The distribution model was genius; 36 disassembled chairs could be packed into a one-cubic-meter box. The affordable chair could be shipped around the world and easily assembled on-site. It has remained a constant in residential and commercial spaces for the last 164 years.

Today the chair has been renamed No. 214, but it is still produced by Gebrüder T 1819. Several copies have been made over the years, but none compare to the original design. The No. 14 can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many others.