80s tubular steel coffee table with laminated wooden top

In the design world there is a lot of talk about Bauhaus style. The Bauhaus was a training facility for visual artists, craftsmen and architects that was established from 1919 to 1932, first in Weimar, then in Dessau and finally in Berlin.

In 1919 Walter Gropius merged his school, together with the Großherzoglich-Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule, into the new Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar. His both theoretical and practical applied program was a synthesis of plastic arts, craft technology and industry.

Gropius taught the students to design efficient, elegant pieces of furniture and utensils. Sleek in line, simple in shape, very functional. The folding furniture, intended for a rather small working-class house, or the bachelor’s closet on wheels that you can open on two sides, stood out in the range. Multifunctionality seemed reinvented by Bauhaus.

The school taught in a way that had never been seen before. The students had to explore their own creativity by working with the most diverse materials. A conscious and passionate search was made for an architecture that has a social impact.

Teachers at the school included Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Designs of furniture from that time are therefore drawn under the influence of their vision and that characterizes furniture as being Bauhaus style furniture. Breuer’s tubular frame constructions are, of course, very well known and mainly named as Bauhaus design, which were also used by his students.

This small coffee table with chromed tubular frame is clearly from this Bauhaus movement and most likely from a student of Marcel Breuer. The table is in good condition!