Otto Wagner, armchair

This is part of a set of furniture that Otto Wagner designed for the Postal Savings Bank in Vienna. The pieces come from different rooms, though they all share the same use of simple, standardized forms. The furniture uses aluminium for the fixings as well as for decoration. The chair design was manufactured by a large-scale furniture producer, who was looking to architects and designers like Wagner to update its range with new-look designs.

Wagner was a leading Austrian architect. He believed that architecture should reflect the modern age of the time, rather than look back to the past for ideas. The Postal Savings Bank is one of his most important buildings. It broke with tradition by using standard components such as rivets and nuts to provide decoration. Wagner created a building using up-to-date methods of construction and materials, and also designed the interior. He used aluminium throughout the building, which was unusual for its time.