Kurt Thut (b. 1931-2011) was born in Möriken, Switzerland. In his father’s workshop, while attending the School of Art and Design in Zurich, Thut improved his carpentry skills.
Biography
Years later, he took over the workshop and managed to turn it into a specialised industrial manufacturing company that exported products for the first time. This is how Thut Möbel AG came into being, playing designer, developer, engineer and producer. Thut belongs to that rare species of manufacturers who design their own products.
Whatever sells is allowed.
Thut said about design concepts, “Whatever sells is allowed,” he explains. In 1958 Thut, Robert and Trix Haussmann and Hans Eichenberger founded the design group Swiss Design. It was around this time that furniture from Switzerland began to achieve international fame. Thut drew inspiration for his work from the Bauhaus and met the design industry’s continually changing requirements with an approach that emphasised continuity, imagination, and functionality.
Believing that good design must be simple and simple above all else, Thut’s best-known works remain true to his philosophy. The sideboard of the series 694 (1953) and the sofa KT-221 (1956) for the brand De Sede adhere to these principles.
Thut Möbel won the Swiss Grand Prix of Design in 2009. He died in 2011.
Sources
Abendroth, U., & Polster, B. (1999). World design: 1 century, 400 designers, 1000 objects. Pavilion.
Polster, B. (2006). The A-Z of modern design. Merrell.
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