Thonet furniture for the new Herr Hase café in Münster Germany, Viennese coffee house furniture design

Thonet furniture for the new Herr Hase café in Münster Viennese coffee house

29 Aug 2023

A modern take on Viennese coffee house culture : Thonet furniture in Münster’s new Herr Hase café

The ambience of Viennese coffee house culture can now be experienced in the recently opened Herr Hase café in the German city of Münster. The café is located in a traditional building in the Ostmarkstrasse with high ceilings, arched windows and decorative tiles. Completely remodelled by Studio eto, the interior now features design classics and modern pieces from Thonet. Here in his latest location, restauranteur Sven Hasenclever serves up freshly brewed coffee from his own roastery.

Thonet furniture in Münster’s new Herr Hase café, Germany

A modern take on Viennese coffee house culture:

The building that houses the Herr Hase café is eye-catching even from a distance. With its pink façade, bay windows and turrets, it sits proudly on a corner of Münster’s Erpho district – a popular, residential area in the city centre characterised by period villas. Huge arched windows flood the ground-floor café with light, and after its complete facelift courtesy of architect Fabian Holst from Studio eto, the interior exudes a charming coffee-house atmosphere. Herr Hase is Münster-based restauranteur Sven Hasenclever’s latest acquisition. Hasenclever has been running his own coffee roastery for years as well as another café in the city. With this new location, he has fulfilled his dream of owning a coffee house with all the style, charm and atmosphere typical of famous Viennese establishments.

Choosing the furniture was easy: “I had to have Thonet chairs. Their design is absolutely classic in the coffee houses of Vienna.” The starting point when it came to furniture could therefore only be the iconic bentwood chairs 209 and 214 (formerly No. 14, the archetypal Thonet bentwood chair from 1859). This is the chair that marked the beginning of modern furniture, as thetechnique for bending solid wood that was perfected by Michael Thonet in the 1850s paved the way for the first serial production processes. Thanks to its manufacturing quality and timeless aesthetics, the 214 is a robustly durable chair which can also be easily repaired. The elegant 209 bentwood armchair has also been used in the Herr Hase café, in a stained black beech version with a Viennese canework seat. Its shape appears minimalist yet organic, almost like a sculpture in the heart of the room.

All the other chairs in the café are also Thonet designs, though more recent interpretations of the bentwood classic. Minimalist, authentic and sophisticated: the 118 chair family is a contemporary take on the Thonet icons, paying tribute to the company’s heritage while also taking it a step further. Designer Sebastian Herkner has added refined details that make the chair subtly elegant and at the same time distinctive. The shape of the chair legs, for example, which are rounded at the back and have gentle edges at the front, picks up the horseshoe shape (a classic Thonet detail) of the seat base. The seat frame itself is also made of bentwood. In the new Herr Hase café, this design can be found in an elegant barstool, the 118 H, as well as a cosy chair trio – with and without armrests (118 and 118 F), grouped around the small bistro tables.

Sleek tubular steel furniture, also from Thonet, completes the noteworthy furnishing of this new coffee house in Münster. The B 10, a slim, cantilevered side table designed by Marcel Breuer has also been chosen for the café, with a stained black beech tabletop to match the chairs. The lower B 97 side tables – designed in the 1930s – can be positioned with their tops over the bench seating that is situated along the café windows, for a practical, space-saving solution.

In choosing both design classics and contemporary furniture from Thonet, owner Sven Hasenclever and architect Fabian Holst have selected pieces that reconcile aesthetics, functionality and durability. Their eye for detail has created a space in which guests want to linger. “A bit like in Vienna, but with a good dose of Münster charm that connects this place to its roots,” says Hasenclever with satisfaction.

Thonet – future-oriented furniture design with a long tradition

The unique success story of Thonet began with the work of master carpenter Michael Thonet, Germany. Ever since he established his first workshop in Boppard on the River Rhine in 1819, the name Thonet has stood for high-quality, innovative and elegant furniture.

The breakthrough came with the iconic chair No. 14, today known the world over as the Vienna Coffee House Chair: the pioneering technique of bending solid beechwood enabled the mass production of chairs for the first time. The second milestone in design history was the tubular steel furniture by the famous Bauhaus architects Mart Stam, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer in the 1930s. During those pioneering years, Thonet was the world’s largest producer of these tubular steel furniture designs, which are today considered timeless.

For the company today, the continuous process of innovation is the top priority, together with a focus on tradition and fine craftsmanship. Thonet’s furniture designs originate both from its collaborations with renowned national and international creatives and from the in-house Thonet Design Team. Chief Executive Officer Brian Boyd and Creative Director Norbert Ruf manage the company from the corporate head office and production site in Frankenberg/Eder (Germany). Michael Thonet’s fifth- and sixth-generation descendants are actively involved with the company’s business as partners and sales representatives.

Thonet

Thonet UK Telephone +44 (0) 7980 019 194

A modern take on Viennese coffee house culture: Thonet furniture in Münster’s new Herr Hase café images / information received 290823