Completed! Woven Upholstery Re-Design of Breuer's Iconic B3 "Wassily" Chair

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From 5 yards of striped upholstery fabric I created 125 yards (375 feet) of handmade webbing which I wove onto the iconic Marcel Breuer "Wassily" Chair frame.  

This is my first weaving project and it proved more challenging than I thought.  The armature created both opportunities and constraints that lead to hours upon hours of trial and error.  It was arduous both mentally and physically and infinitely, infinitley rewarding.

A friend jokingly called this project blasphemous.  Perhaps in some ways it is, but now the chair is more comfortable than the original and ar more tactile.  It has inspired new ideas for original armatures with alternate weaving strategies.

See more here and please post a comment below.  I'd love to know what you think.

Upholstery Re-design Underway of Marcel Breuer's "Wassily" Chair

About two years ago I purchased an old Wassily Chair frame at a thrift store in California, and since then I've been thinking of ways to return the chair to a usable piece of furniture.

The "Wassily Chair" was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925-1926.  It is also known as the Model B3 chair and was created while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany.  Inspired by Breuer's love for his own bicycle, he created the frame of chrome plated tubular steel.  The original upholstery panels were made of canvas, but later productions used leather.

Wassily" chair, 1925
Marcel Breuer (American, born Hungary, 1902–1981)
Chrome-plated steel, canvas upholstery

Building upon the concepts and materials of the Eames Rocker that I transformed last year as part of BMoCA and Design Within Reach's White Space event, I've created my own lacing once again to weave upholstery panels in place of canvas or leather.

The project is still in progress, but should be done in a few days.