The Austrian brand is proud to return to the international furniture fair and to renew their collaboration with Iranian-French architect, designer and scenographer India Mahdavi. Gebrüder Thonet Vienna will also present new creations in collaboration with Hong Kong-based design and architecture practice AB Concept and Venice and Stockholm based Nichetto Studio

Salone del Mobile, 18 - 23 April 2023 ​Pavilion 4, Booth G05

Vienna, Austria, 29 March 2023 - Gebrüder Thonet Vienna returns to Salone del Mobile (18-23 April) presenting new collections realised in collaboration with internationally-acclaimed designers such as India Mahdavi, AB Concept and Nichetto Studio.

For this year’s Salone del Mobile, Gebrüder Thonet Vienna will showcase new designs within a stylistic presentation devised to highlight the pieces against the tranquil scenography of the overall booth. The new collections will harmoniously complement the atmosphere of Nordic homes, wrapped in natural woods and light colours, and immersed in an intimate and enveloping nature.

The new creations include the dining version of the Loop Chair, designed by India Mahdavi for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna in 2022, as well as the new Mickey, a comfortable armchair of generous dimensions also bearing Mahdavi’s signature.

Ed Ng, Co-Founder of international design practice AB Concept, collaborates with Gebrüder Thonet Vienna for the first time this year, presenting Hagu, a chair that softly embraces the body of the person sitting in it.

Luca Nichetto, founder of Nichetto Studio, plays with metal, a material new to Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, for Ample, creating a bridge between the brand’s traditional manufacturing techniques and modern innovation.

‘The new collection of chairs and armchairs designed by AB Concept and Nichetto Studio represent a real innovation in the world of Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, where the classic handcrafted curved wood leaves room for a plywood shell that embraces and envelops the whole system, wisely integrated with new metallic materials. The result fully expresses the aesthetic values of the brand’ says Riccardo Pigati, CEO of Gebrüder Thonet Vienna

INDIA MAHDAVI, LOOP DINING CHAIR AND MICKEY ARMCHAIRGebrüder Thonet Vienna renews their collaboration with India Mahdavi: for the second year in a row, the unmistakable style of the internationally renowned architect and designer meets the Austrian brand’s emblematic curved lines, giving life to a new dining chair and lounge chair that will be on show at Salone del Mobile.

In response to the invitation of the historic company Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, India Mahdavi has extended the Loop family, which already included a lounge chair and a banquette presented in 2022, with a newly designed dining chair and a lounge chair, called Mickey for its characteristic “ears” that recall those of a mouse, a palpable echo to Mahdavi's ‘childhood heroes’.v In the words of India Mahdavi, ‘The Mickey chair is high and comfy but also embracing, colourful and kind. A friend to cherish and with big ears, who listens to all your fears.’

To express the company’s ancestral know-how, India Mahdavi stayed true to the motion, pursuing the line without lifting her pencil. This continuous thread, which acts as the Loop’s structure, coils itself up to form the chair’s articulation, leaving two loops bent in its wake. The seductive curls that characterise the Loop push the boundaries of possibility – India Mahdavi demands of the bent beech wood to double its efforts in order to amplify its beauty and roundness.

In the new Loop dining chair, the seat upholstered in yellow wool harmoniously matches to the natural essence of the wooden structure, while the Mickey armchair combines a black wood structure in slight contrast with two different nuances of green upholstery, highlighting the piece’s playful soul.

“Gebrüder Thonet Vienna is the only manufacturer in the world that enables you to translate a free hand drawing by giving it a wooden materiality of that quality” says India Mahdavi.

Together with AB Concept, Gebrüder Thonet Vienna sought to design a new chair to evolve its bent-wood heritage while integrating a new material. The Hagu chair is equally at home in a residential or contract setting, including hospitality environments, offering something unexpected and fresh while expressing the brand's aesthetic values. Elegant, lightweight, refined, and comfortable even for extended periods, the chair features a slim metal frame that supports a plywood shell with an ergonomically angled, upholstered seat pad. The frame extends slightly further than the shell at the back, providing an intuitive yet invisible "handle" for the staff to pull out the chair for a guest in a restaurant setting.

Gebrüder Thonet Vienna​Salone Internazionale del Mobile​Tuesday 18 - Sunday 23 April 2023​Rho Fiera Milano​Opening Hours: 9.30am to 6.30pm daily​Pavilion 4, Booth G05

Preview Day:​Tuesday 18 April​9.30am to 6.30pm

Salone del Mobile

ABOUT INDIA MAHDAVI​Architect, designer and scenographer, India Mahdavi lives and works in Paris.

​Created in 2000, her studio is known for the diversity of its international projects which explore the fields of architecture, interior design, scenography, furniture and object design – with a strong focus on craftsmanship and know-hows, as a way to strengthen ties between the hand, the mind, the heart and the eye. Aside from her celebrated environments and decors that all combine a modern sense of comfort and elegance with colour and humour, Mahdavi is known for her own personal collection of furniture and objects and for engaging regularly into unique design collaborations – showing at every occasion what can be achieved when the finest French and European know-hows are made to serve the imagination.

Polyglotte & polychrome, India Mahdavi has become a signature, elaborating a special vocabulary that is joyful, cosmopolite and elegant all at the same time – a cross-cultured ‘art de vivre’.

From The Gallery at Sketch in London to the Cavallino restaurant she designed for Ferrari in Maranello or the Hôtel du Cloître in Arles, India Mahdavi’s achievements in interior design are numerous. Aside from the collection she recently designed for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, she has previously joined forces with famous brands – Louis Vuitton / Objets Nomades, Pierre Frey, La Manufacture Cogolin, Monoprix –and renowned galleries such as Nilufar in Milan and, most recently, Carwan in Athens. Named in Architectural Digest’s Hall of Fame since 2019, Mahdavi won Frame Magazine’s 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award and was named 2023 Designer of the Year by Wallpaper. The most emblematic realisations of the first twenty years of Mahdavi’s personal career are highlighted and documented in her first eponymous monograph, released in 2021 with Chronicle Chroma. https://india-mahdavi.com | @indiamahdavi | @indiamahdavieditions

ABOUT AB CONCEPT​AB Concept is an international interior design and architecture studio founded in 1999 by Ed Ng and Terence Ngan. The studio's unique design approach draws similarities to how a chef develops a recipe, exploring local culture and experimenting with tastes and skills. This approach results in bespoke experiences through narrative-driven interiors with meticulous attention to detail, creating moments that matter in luxury environments across the hospitality, commercial, and residential sectors. AB Concept works on a global scale with offices in Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, London and Milan, serving clients in 16 countries and over 30 cities, from holiday destinations such as Algarve and Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat to gateway cities like London, New York, Shanghai, and Tokyo. The studio collaborates closely with internationally-renowned hospitality, restaurant, and luxury brands, including Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton, Rosewood, Waldorf Astoria, and W Hotels. Recent projects include the acclaimed Paper Moon Giardino restaurant in Milan, Lalique's flagship store in Shanghai, and the bar Argo at the Hong Kong Four Seasons, named one of the world's top 50 bars. Ultimately, design is about being. In addition to spatial design, the studio continues to develop a portfolio of design products. To date, the studio has worked with Tai Ping on a capsule collection of couture rugs and hand-blown Bohemian glass lighting for Czech manufacturer Lasvit. With a reputation for exceptional design projects and a commitment to innovation, AB Concept continues to explore what design can do, not what it looks like. www.abconcept.net | @ab_concept

ABOUT NICHETTO STUDIO​Luca Nichetto founded his eponymous multidisciplinary design practice in Venice, Italy in 2006, specialising in industrial design, product design and design consultancy. From the very beginning, Nichetto Studio worked with a number of different brands and organisations; these collaborations were to become a cornerstone of his work and his influence had soon expanded far beyond Venice and Italy’s borders. Fellow Treviso-born designer Francesco Dompieri joined the studio as a partner in 2007, and four years later, Nichetto opened a second studio in Stockholm, Sweden, catering to an ever growing number of requests for collaboration from international companies.

​Soon, the studio’s work was broadening out from its initial focus on designed objects.Today, the studio works with a variety of brands and clients from around the world and its expertise is sought out across all design disciplines. A deep passion for, and knowledge of, industrial and craft manufacturing processes runs through every aspect of the studio’s work. Its projects abound in carefully selected cultural references and a keen attention to detail. The practice’s unique position within both Scandinavian and Italian design culture has given Nichetto Studio worldwide acclaim that extends far beyond the confines of the design industry. http://nichettostudio.com | @nichettostudio