The furniture manufacturer Thonet, in existence for over two centuries, is best known for its bentwood furniture. Seeking a designer to create a new piece of seating furniture at the beginning of the 21st century, Thonet chose Stefan Diez, who’s based in Munich. Due to his approach of defining designs primarily through the production process rather than resorting to existing forms, Thonet hoped the result would be a modern, contemporary chair. Another aim was to inject new impetus into the production method of bending and shaping wood developed by Thonet back in the 19th century and update it. The chair’s legs and curved backrest are laminated, bent into identical radii, and machine-cut into thin profiles. Below the seat, which is thicker in the middle, the U-shaped elements converge in a star-shaped “knot,” which is glued and set into the recesses of the seat. No longer a purely functional element, this “knot” is transformed into a structural, stabilizing element providing additional support for the legs. Diez’s design is an unusual chair that reflects Thonet’s heritage, yet also takes it further – for the 404F Chair also meets today’s ergonomic and aesthetic expectations.