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Introduction  As a result of their contrasting design philosophies, the designers of the Arts and Crafts movement and the Industrial designers produced starkly different products. The former believed that handmade products were of better quality and all products must be produced with a focus on craftsmanship, attention to detail and high standards. Their concerns extended beyond just design choices, as they were unhappy with working conditions in factories, since they believed that only a joyful worker will be able to produce quality goods. The Morris chair represents the prevailing ideas of the time; according to Sawatzki (2016), early Morris chair designed by Ephraim Colman and produced by Morris & Co. reflected the Victorian taste for fancy frills with turned legs and spindles with upholstery made of luxurious decorative textiles. It was very popular at the time and remained a staple in the company’s catalogue since 1865, until they shut shop in 1940. On the other hand, the Industrial designers were focused more on leveraging the benefits afforded by machines to innovate and improve their products. Driven by the demand created by the emerging middle class, these designers mass-produced products, making them simple, affordable and functional. The production process directly affected the design of the chair, eventually building a distinct visual language—a fine example being the Thonet No. 14 chair. Michael Thonet was initially trained as a craftsman, who experimented with new technologies to solve 19th century problems in a new way. This quest led him to develop what we call as “Steam Pressurized Bending” today. Another interesting aspect is presented by Morris in his 1882 speech titled “The Lesser Arts of Life”, in which he says: Our furniture should be good citizen's furniture, solid and well made in workmanship, and in design should have nothing about it that is not easily defensible, no monstrosities or extravagances, not even of beauty, lest we weary of it. Here lies a paradox—were Morris and Thonet trying to do the same thing? Why then are their designs so starkly different? How did they fit in the social and political context of their time? The essay shall discuss these questions by comparing the Thonet chair vis-à-vis the Morris chair, from their conception to their legacy. Ideals and Philosophy According to Britannica (1998), William Morris was a part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters and artists who were inspired by Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries. They admired and sought to replicate the direct and uncomplicated depiction of nature typical of Italian painting before the High Renaissance. The design philosophy of the Crafts movement was characterized by an affinity for intricate ornamentation and motifs of the masters of ages past. Such products were time-intensive, difficult to make and thus prohibitively expensive, which meant only the rich were able to afford it- this caused great sorrow to Morris and others since their aim was to bring such products to the masses. A good example to illustrate their worldview would be to examine Morris’ first novel: William Morris wrote a novel called “News from Nowhere” which is narrated by William Guest, who, after coming back from a meeting of the Socialist League, falls asleep and wakes up to find himself in a utopian world. A community based on collective ownership, where there is no government, no judiciary and no concept of money- a society which does work out of pleasure, finding joy in nature and creating things. This kind of Marxist world was what the proponents of the Crafts Movement envisioned, and made products for. Morris’ golden rule of house-furnishing was, “Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” He claimed that all art started from this simplicity, and the greater the art the more noticeable was its simplicity. (Trigg, 2018) On the other hand, The Industrial designers were also looking to fulfil the needs of the time; aided by machines, they were able to look at the larger picture since they considered factors of cost, labour, skill and manufacturing, all of which were crucial aspects of their design process. Michael Thonet was fascinated with the idea of bending wood and after years of research, acquired a patent for it. Unlike the Crafts movement, he did not seek to replicate the past, but innovated for the future. His design process and philosophy was driven by the advantages and limitations of the production method, functionality, ease of use and most importantly, cost. His chair cost about three florins, which was at the time the price of a good bottle of wine—well within the reach of any middle or low class workman. Design of the Chairs The Morris chair was not designed by William Morris himself, but by an English carpenter called Ephraim Colman, whose idea was sketched by Warrington Taylor. This was adapted into production by Phillip Webb as a part of the Morris and Co. furniture catalogue. Figure 1. Standing 39 inches tall, this Morris chair is made of an oak frame, with “squirrel wool” tapestry. Adjustable Chair (Morris Chair) (Digital Image) It was designed to be an easy recliner-type chair, high armrests with notches to adjust the angle of the backrest. It featured cushions on the seat, backrest and arms, and the fact that it had an adjustable reclining back made it quite comfortable. It was very popular because it strayed from the traditional Victorian designs which were rigid and not very cosy. The chairs produced by Morris and Co. have a distinctly Victorian appearance. The idea was there, but the execution was too frilly and fancy; way too delicate to serve as the resting place for a king in his castle (Lang, 2011). Figure 4 & 5. Technical drawing of Morris chair showing just the woodwork. Source: Adams, J.D In his book Carpentry For Beginners - Things To Make John D. Adams says that “The design of the Morris chair is one that will appeal to the amateur craftsman, not only on account of its unique features, but because of its simple method of construction.” Figure 4. A dismantled No. 14 Chair. Source: Barros, Mário (2011) The Thonet chair comprises of 6 steam bent wooden parts, joined by 10 screws and two nuts. Its design is so simple that even a layman can assemble the chair without specialized tools or instructions. The seat was made of woven cane or palm with holes in between, enabling drainage of spilt liquid and easy cleaning. Unlike most chairs of the time, it could be disassembled for shipping and packed very efficiently; 36 chairs could fit into a one cubic metre box (a cube roughly waist high), widely regarded as the first flat-pack furniture piece. The same cannot be said for the Morris chair, which cannot be dismantled easily, let alone be packed efficiently—one of the key differences between the two chairs, as it clearly portrays the differences in vision of their respective designers. Figure 5. 36 chairs could be disassembled and packed into a box of one cubic metre. Source: Thonet. Another stroke of genius on Thonet’s part was designing the chairs in the catalogue to have interchangeable parts—pioneering what we call as “modular” furniture today. The user could mix and match seats and arms of different models, to create their very own Thonet designs. This playful, do-it-yourself assembly created a special relationship between the chair and the user, since physical interaction forms memories and associates emotions with the object. By doing so, Thonet brought a human element into the design of an otherwise plain, mass-produced product. Uniformity across different parts could only be achieved due to mass production. Such modular furniture would be near impossible to replicate if each part was handmade, like a product of the crafts movement. All of this was achieved while keeping the cost minimal—the chair cost three florins, about the price of a bottle of wine. It not only accepted but turned to positive advantage the limitations of machine production, which for good results asks for anonymous, simple shapes devoid of the craftsman's rich and intricate detail. There is elegance and refinement in many of the pieces and an inventiveness in the use of material and production methods which have not been surpassed. (Thonet Industries, 1953) Manufacturing Processes and Materials The production of the Morris chair required a woodworker with a reasonable amount of skill, a big list of wood planks to be procured, cut and then finally made into the chair. It followed the traditional methods and practices of woodworking, as the craftsman was very honest with its design. This point is evident through the presence of exposed joinery, type of wood and the amount of details which go into one chair. There have been many variants of the Morris chair, but for the sake of this essay we will focus on the later models of the more popular Morris chair. The making of the Morris chair is a project which demands a level of skill and attention. If made well, it stands as a testament to the abilities of the workman. The process should begin with making the four identical legs first, then the arm rests with four holes on each side for the adjustment pegs. The side cross piece is then attached to the legs using mortise and tenon joints. Now that two sides of the chair are assembled, they must be glued well and clamped for atleast 8 hours before they can be joined together in a similar fashion to the front and back cross pieces. Two slightly tapering side-pieces along with five cross-bars make up the back frame. Two strong hinges must be used to attach the frame to the back cross-piece, enabling the reclining motion. One can also attach wooden slats to support the seat cushions (Adams J. D., 1917). Thonet was fresh out of his apprenticeship and was experimenting with bent wood slats. In the 1830s, Thonet boiled wood veneers in glue and then bent them to make his “Boppard Layerwood chair” . In the forthcoming years, he succeeded in bending solid pieces of wood, and thus was born The No. 14 Chair. After some trial and error, Thonet decided to pick beech wood to make his chairs since he found it was much less likely to break during or after the bending process. As he kept experimenting with the production methods, he finally succeeded in 1856: First, he cut the beech logs into strips and turned them on a lathe. He then bent this long rounded off piece of beech by placing it in a steam machine to soften the resin in the wood. After this, the piece was placed it in a curved iron holder called a “jig” with a supportive tin strap around the outside of the wood to prevent splintering. This used to happen due to the stress on the outside part of the wood, as it was stretched the most. After drying for at least 24 hours, the natural resin hardened and the pieces were observed to hold their shape. This was a major breakthrough—not only in the production of this chair, but in the history of furniture. Steam bending allowed the over shaping of the material thus producing “a secondary natural aesthetic” (Gleiniger, 1998, p. 60). Art Nouveau design elements, like the long, sensitive curves, and the flowing, endless interplay of lines, were intrinsic parts of bentwood design. (Industries, 1953). On 16th July, 1842, Michael Thonet acquired a patent for his steam bending process and in 1859, the very first No.14 Chair was produced. Social and Economic Impact The beechwood Thonet used was sourced from forests near the factory in Koritschan (present day Czech Republic), setting an early example of sustainable design and material sourcing, while simultaneously cutting down on transportation costs—ultimately reducing the price of the chair. Thonet Industries (1953) notes that labour was divided between men to do heavy work and youthful helpers, mostly girls, for sanding, polishing, weaving and packing. The weaving of care seats and backs was later transformed into a separate home industry. “The Koritschan factory opened in 1857, and with it Thonet’s production of furniture moved completely out of the realm of craft into industrial production. For the first time, no craftsmen or cabinetmakers were employed. The local workers were trained in the completely new methods of industrial production, which stressed the importance of timing and the necessity of teamwork.” (Wilk, 1980, p. 23) According to Vegesack (1996), during the time when the limestone factory was set up, Thonet was providing housing estates for his workers, with facilities such as libraries, crèches, schools and shops, all of which were supplied building materials from this factory. In turn, a limestone factory was built in 1899 to meet the demand for building materials for these factories. Since a piece of furniture like the Morris chair came with a sense of legacy and class, it was valued highly by its owners. The pride of owning a part of history, crafted painstakingly by a master craftsman is priceless, and forms an intrinsic part of the experience of using the chair. This concept was widely imitated across the globe, most notably in America by Gustav Stickley , forming what is known as mission style furniture. Stickley made his own version of the Morris chair made out of pure white oak. It was simple, with no carving or detailing, reducing the concept of the Morris chair to its very basics. This style of craftsmanship derived heavily from the principles of William Morris, although their products were devoid of ornamentation unlike their cousins from across the Atlantic. History and Legacy The Morris chair has undergone so many iterations, thus there are an astonishing range of these chairs; but according to Wiggins (2019), nothing could be more ironic than Morris’ chair being mass produced—the system he so vehemently opposed, was what brought the products of the Crafts movement within reach of the masses. Until then, the Morris chair was synonymous with luxury; found only in the living rooms of the ones Morris hated the most: the rich and wealthy. This was not entirely his fault, as it was co-opted by society as an icon for extravagance- this was by virtue of its intricate designs and handcrafted production techniques. In Sinclair Lewis's novel 'Babbitt' (1922) the title character lists the Morris Chair as a perk of an educational elite who “blows his father's money and sits around in Morris chairs in a swell Harvard dormitory with pictures and shields and table-covers and those doodads . . .” Even our very own V.S. Naipaul, while describing the architect of the house in his novel 'A House for Mr Biswas’ (1961) remarks: “What a change from those backyards, overrun with chickens and children, to the drawingroom of the solicitor’s clerk who, coatless, tieless and in slippers, looked relaxed and comfortable in his Morris chair, while the heavy red curtains, reflecting on the polished floor, made the scene as cosy and rich as something in an advertisement!” These examples illustrate that the perception of the Morris chairs changed into exactly the opposite of their original intention, to be a high quality chair which was accessible to everyone. On the other hand, the Thonet chair’s popularity was picking up quickly. The chair was inexpensive, which meant it could be afforded by the burgeoning middle and lower-middle classes, being widely used for furnishing in homes, bistros, coffee shops, cafes, restaurants appearing in many famous paintings like Lautrec’s “At the Moulin Rouge” (1895). After he had refined his technique, one of Thonet’s earliest clients was Madame Daum, who owned the Café Daum in Vienna, which he supplied with chairs and coat stands made of veneered mahogany. Chairs in a public place see the roughest usage; thus, the fact that the chairs remained in continuous use for thirty years is a shining example of their quality (Rybczynski, 2016). “Never before has anything been created that is more elegant and better in in its conception, more precise in its design and more functional.” -Le Corbusier on the No. 14 Chair. Exhibiting his furniture at the 1851 Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, Thonet was awarded the bronze medal for innovation, originality and elegance of form, setting a new precedent in industrial aesthetics which was taken up in the 1920s by the architects of Modernism. Between 1859 and 1914, an incredible 40 million Model No.14 chairs were produced, with Thonet employing 25,000 workers in some 60 factories throughout Europe. (Lizon, 1997) The most noteworthy owners of this chair are the millions of commoners who used day in and day out, exalting the chair to its iconic status- other owners include Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Aguste Renoir and Joseph Stalin. Thonet’s work was an early example of the principle “form follows function”, paving the way for Modernism as early as the late 1800s. His furniture was admired by prolific Modernist architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer—all three of them having designed chairs for the Thonet company, drawing inspiration from the classic No. 14. Conclusion After a brief glance into the ideas of these two movements and analysing their products, it becomes evident that both set out to achieve a similar goal: to make products which addressed the needs of the emerging middle class. We now see that the approach of the Crafts movement, although noble, was unable to fulfil that which they set out to do. In love with the masters of old, their products carried a rich heritage, which instead of being accessible to all (as Morris intended), quickly became a byword for extravagance. Their short sighted view that Industrialisation was incapable of making quality products was something that Thonet’s chair proved wrong. Thonet was a craftsman too, but he saw the potential advantages in machine made products, and the power of mass production. He leveraged the technology of his time (which he also pioneered) in his iterative design process to create a product which was designed holistically, keeping every factor of production in mind. As a man who was much ahead of his time, Thonet’s interpretation of Industrial Design was disruptive and fresh, using the most appropriate means to achieve his goal, since he was not blinded by this quest for a utopia which is impossible in this world, considering the fallenness of mankind. Persevering through failure and hardship, Thonet took the road less travelled by, and that made all the difference.