Marcel Breuer

As a young master at the Bauhaus, Breuer was inspired by the handlebars of his bicycle to bend seamless steel tube into furniture. The Wassily armchair of 1925 and especially the cantilevered Cesca chair of 1928, with its cane seat on a single looping tube, brought light, cheap-to-make, easily cleaned furniture into kitchens, cafés and offices worldwide; the Cesca's springy cantilever is still a comfortable dining chair. The cantilever idea was shared with Mart Stam and Mies van der Rohe, and the first tubular pieces were made with the Mannesmann steel company's tubing.