History
A cabinet maker, inventor and furniture designer Michael Thonet (1796 - 1871), originally from Boppard in the Rhine Region, settled in Moravia, where he founded manufacturing facilities to produce bent wood furniture in Koryčany (1856) and in Bystřice pod Hostýnem (1861). The factory in Bystřice pod Hostýnem was the largest factory of its kind, Gebrüder Thonet, and became the centre for development and export of products all over the world.
The original THONET company was succeeded by a joint-stock company THONET–MUNDUS after World War I and since 1946, as a result of a merger of several major furniture manufactures, by THONET; in 1953 it was renamed TON (abbreviation of “bentwood furniture factory”) with the place of business in Bystřice pod Hostýnem. The manufacturer has been in continuous operation over a century without any break in production. Today TON is one of the major European manufacturing centres of quality bent wood furniture.
Technology
The technique of wood bending in a steam bath has been practised in Bystrice pod Hostynem for almost 150 years already. It concerns production technology of beech wood furniture, which is based on steaming a piece of wood by saturated steam in order to allow its easier bending. The hand-made bend of a backrest part of not only the most famous chairs No. 14 and No. 18 is executed by means of a mold, a shape of which copies a special flange preventing the bent wood cracking. The steam technique is also used for seat bending, which is more automated at present.
