Mart Stam - Purmerend, 1899 - Zürich, 1986

Mart Stam, was a guest lecturer at the Bauhaus in 1928, and director of the Amsterdam Institute of Applied Art from 1939 until 1948, of the Dresden Akademie der Bildenden Künste from 1948 to 1950 and of the Kunstakademie Berlin-Weissensee from 1950 to 1953. Stam’s reputation as a chair designer rests almost exlusively on one design – the S 33 – which was the first tubular steel cantilever chair. The idea originated from a chair made for his wife from straight lenghts of tube and gas-fitters’ «L» joints, which he described to his fellow collaborators in the Stuttgart Weissenhofsiedlung exhibition at the preliminary conference in November 1926.