debauhaus1-6, Exercise 2: An object and its attribution

Model answer (one possible choice):

The tubular-steel club chair, designed by Marcel Breuer around 1925 to 1926, when he led the furniture workshop at Dessau (check the dates). It has a frame of bent steel tubing with canvas or leather straps for the seat, back and arms. It was later nicknamed the "Wassily" chair, after Kandinsky, who is said to have owned an early example (check when and why the name came into use). A popular story says Breuer was inspired by bicycle handlebars (check the source).

A caution about the attribution: Breuer is credited with the design, but tubular steel was also being used for furniture by other designers around the same time, and the "Bauhaus invented the steel chair" claim is too simple (see Chapter 1). The chair's name came later than the chair, and later production by furniture companies can blur which features belong to the original. For a dated and documented account, use a museum catalogue or a specialist history, and treat a shop's description as the weakest source (check).

(The alternative answer, on the Kandem lamp, would say it is associated with Marianne Brandt and Hin Bredendieck, made in volume by an industrial firm around 1928, with the caution that credit for lamp designs is shared and disputed (check).)