Armchair, cherry wood and leather, 22 Sommerfeld house, 1921.
The chair was so different from Breuer's other chairs of 1921 (and so much more interesting) that one must wonder whether he independently developed the design or whether the Sommerfeld furniture reflected the ideas of another designer; perhaps Gropius. Comparison of the Sommerfeld chair with Gropius' cubelike office armchair of 1923 (fig. 5) suggests that it was the younger Breuer who was beginning to influence his teacher and friend.
The Breuer chair was reminiscent of certain cube chairs produced in Vienna and Darmstadt during the first decade of the century. But unlike those completely forward-looking designs, the cube form was, in the Breuer chair, tempered and enlivened by a lingering feeling for primitive folk furniture. This tendency is demonstrated in the extension of the front and rear legs above the seat and back and the emphatically separate articulation of the legs, which both literally and figuratively "carry" the bulk of the chair.
Fateuil a Grand Confort LC3 Chair, 1929
Lets compare the LC3 designed in 1929 by Corbusier and Perriand. The designing comment is tubular steel, which was initially developed by Breuer himself, but becomes the skeleton of the what was then a squishy leather chair filled with down feathers. Today, the LC3 chair has been updated through modern innovation with foam creating a boxy silhouette, seeming much like the Breuer chair. My initial understanding of the LC3 chair was that the goal was to create such an angular chair marked by the tubular steel holding it in place, but that technology had not overcome this invention, but now looking at one of Breuer’s first chairs in 1921 it shows me how the shape was indeed possible at the time leading me to think about how first Breuer’s chair must have not been very comfortable, but we are not sure at the moment. Secondly, this leads me to talk about the LC3 chair, to my understanding, the chair was either purposefully made without such angular form, or the designers were not aware of a way to create such a shape. This then brings me to consider how today we have updated the LC3 chair by inserting foam pads to create the shape that was absent during its creation. What does that mean? Who geared us to insert foam assuming this was the goal of the LC three chair design? What it was perfectly designed in its prototype and did not intend to become more angular?
Judging based on my recent findings of sketches by Perriand and I've learned two things. The first is that the LC3 chair is pretty much Perriand’s design. As you can see in the circular stamp, it states Charlotte Perriand Archive. The other thing I've learned is that in these drawings the chair seems to be a lot more boxy than the prototype/outcome. Therefore, I have answered my own question of whether or not we have reinterpreted the LC3 chair into a boxed matter, but according to these drawings that is its intended design.