Thonet Tubular Steel Furniture / exhibition catalogue / Vitra Design

Founded in 1929 in Paris, France, by Hans John and Bruno Weill, the firm worked closely with Thonet-Mundus in Vienna, from which it took its name. Bruno Weill was the stepson of Leopold Pilzer, who took over the majority share of Thonet-Mundus in the late 1920s. The firm’s sales rooms, offices, and stockrooms were located to the north of Paris. From 1930, Thonet Frères produced and sold tubular steel designs by French designers including Le Corbusier, Émile Guyot, Pierre Jeanneret, André Lurçat, Charlotte Perriand, and Charles Siclis, along with designs by Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Bruno Weill himself designed several models marked with the abbreviation Béwé. In 1938, after Leopold Pilzer and his family emigrated to the United States, André Leclerc managed the firm; in 1962 he took over Thonet Frères. In 1952 the firm worked together with Pierre Paulin, a designer of furniture, advertising brochures, and exhibition booths, and with designer Jean-Pierre Laporte. Thonet Frères ceased operations circa 1980.