Mid Century Modern B64 Black and Beech Marcel Breuer Cesca Chair Italy 70s
About the Item
- Creator:Marcel Breuer (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 31.5 in (80 cm)Width: 23.63 in (60 cm)Depth: 19.69 in (50 cm)Seat Height: 18.12 in (46 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1970-1979
- Condition:Rewoven. Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Escalona, ES
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU4651239088092
Cesca Chair
Ubiquitous but never boring, the Cesca chair has defined casual elegance in the dining room since 1928. Designed by Marcel Breuer (1902–81) for the Austrian furniture maker Gebrüder Thonet, the original Cesca chair combines natural beechwood caning and modern tubular steel for a sensibility that celebrates both handicraft and industrialization. It’s a paragon of Bauhaus design, embodying the school’s “truth to materials” philosophy and adhering to the movement’s emphasis on mass production. In fact, the Cesca chair was the first-ever tubular steel frame chair with a caned seat to be mass produced — a breakthrough for furniture design.
Breuer got his start in architecture after dropping out of the painting program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He began apprenticing with a Viennese architect and went on to join the Bauhaus movement in 1921, when he was just 19 years old, eventually becoming a master carpenter at the German arts school. While there, Breuer designed furniture for Sommerfeld House in Berlin, industrialist Adolf Sommerfeld’s private residence, which was conceived by architects Walter Gropius (the Bauhaus school’s founder) and Adolf Meyer. Not long afterward, Breuer’s experiments with tubular steel would yield his Wassily chair, named for his friend, painter and Bauhaus professor Wassily Kandinsky, as well as the Cesca.
Originally called the B32, Breuer renamed the chair in honor of his daughter, Francesca, when Italian manufacturer Gavina began producing it in the early 1960s. Knoll introduced the chair when it acquired Gavina in 1968 and continues to manufacture it today.
And while the Cesca chair’s silhouette has remained the same throughout the decades, Breuer himself later made minor modifications, including the implementation of a shallower curve to the back and the addition of a second piece of steel for the frame to account for both comfort and durability. With the Cesca’s cantilevered construction, Breuer’s design transcended that of the traditional four-legged dining chair, pushing the boundaries of what “everyday” could mean in furniture.
Marcel Breuer
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld.
In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair.
Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Escalona, Spain
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
- Set of Two Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer B64 Blonde Cesca Chairs, Italy, 70sLocated in Escalona, ToledoSet of two Cesca chairs model B64, with armrests. Tubular steel chromed structure, beechwood and Viennese natural grid. Chrome tubular structure with wear areas at the bottom of som...Category
Vintage 1970s Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Set of Two Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer B32 Cesca Chair, Italy 1970sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Escalona, ToledoSet of two Cesca chairs, model B32, made in Italy in the 1970s. Black lacquered beech wood frames and Viennese natural grid. The grill seat have been put new. Very good general con...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Set of Two Mid-Century Modern Marcel Breuer B32 Blonde Cesca Chairs, Italy 1970sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Escalona, ToledoSet of two Cesca chairs model B32. Tubular steel chromed structure, beechwood and Viennese natural grid. Chrome tubular structure is in good condition. Grids of the two seats have b...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Mid Century Italian Modern Brass and Oak adjustable height Chandelier 70sLocated in Escalona, ToledoBeautiful height-adjustable hanging lamp. Made in Italy in the 1970s, it is composed of a brass eye and an oak structure. Italian modern style piece as beautiful as it is rare. As ca...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
MaterialsAluminum, Brass, Steel
- Pascal Mourgue set of Four Black Mid Century Modern Biscia Chairs France 70sBy Steiner, Pascal MourgueLocated in Escalona, ToledoPascal Mourgue for Steiner, set of 4 'Biscia' stackable dining chairs, steel, vinyl leather, France. Designed in the 60s, this edition belongs to the late 60s or early 70s. Set of f...Category
Vintage 1970s French Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- FASE Microphones Brass Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamp, Spain 70sBy FaseLocated in Escalona, ToledoFloor lamp with three independent and adjustable lighting sources from the prestigious Spanish brand FASE. The spotlights of this curious and fun lamp are sh...Category
Mid-20th Century Spanish Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps
MaterialsSteel, Iron, Brass
- Pair of Marcel Breuer B64 Design Cesca Chairs by Gavina, circa 1960By Marcel BreuerLocated in Barcelona, BarcelonaChairs, model Cesca, designed by Marcel Breuer. Manufactured in Italy around 1960 by Gavina manufacturer. Metal pipe frame, wood seat and back structure and rattan. In good or...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsMetal
- Mid-Century Modern B64 Cesca Chair with Arms by Marcel Breuer, Italy, 1970sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Marbella, ESChair model Cesca B64, with armrests. Chromed tubular structure, beechwood frames in black color and Viennese natural grid. Excellent condition in general both of the wooden frames, ...Category
Late 20th Century Italian Armchairs
MaterialsSteel
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of Chrome and Black Cesca Chair by Marcel BreuerBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian set of 3 chrome cantilever Cesca chair with black lacquered wood profiles by Marcel Breuer. The chairs are in really good ...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsChrome
- White Framed Marcel Breuer 'B64' Cesca Armchair w/ Cane Seat by Gavina, c. 1960By Marcel Breuer, GavinaLocated in Los Angeles, CACharming 'B64' Cesca Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina Italy, circa 1960s. Named after his daughter Francesca the 'Cesca' is an attractive side or dining chair on a white painted met...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
MaterialsMetal
- Marcel Breuer Cesca Chair Italy 1970sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Čelinac, BAMarcel Breuer Cesca Chair Italy 1970sCategory
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsChrome
- Black Cesca Chair Affter Marcel Breuer Italy 1980sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Čelinac, BAStyle of Marcel Breuer Black Cesca Chair Italy 1980sCategory
Vintage 1980s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsMetal