The tubular steel design of furniture designer Marcel Breuer (1902–1981) is considered an outstanding design style of the 20th-century. Yet widely unknown is the development of the first tubular steel prototype to its early series production. Breuer’s fellow compatriot Kálmán Lengyel (1900–1945), to whom this comprehensive publication is dedicated, played a significant role in this. In 1927, they founded the company Standard Möbel together, in order to organise the series production and distribution of tubular steel furniture. The development of the company and the work of Breuer, Lengyel, and the later director Anton Lorenz are depicted here in-depth with previously unpublished archive material. As a prominent furniture designer and architect, Lengyel also founded his own furniture brand, Ka-Le-Möbel, and worked as an interior designer in Paris, as well as constructed buildings in Berlin, Szeged, and Budapest. This publication expands our knowledge about the early models and highlights the life and work of the protagonists of the tubular steel revolution!


Text in German.