TON
Czech Republic

The History
…the oldest in the world
More than 150 years ago, the first pieces of bentwood furniture were created by craftsmen in Bystřice pod Hostýnem. The town with a strategic location, surrounded by beech woods, was chosen as a place suitable for another of Michael Thonet's factories. His principles of bending wood were adopted by TON in 1953 after several changes of property rights and company names. Bystřice pod Hostýnem is the oldest place in the world where a traditional manufacturing technology is still used.

Technology and Production
…by hand and heart
Every single wood piece is unique. It needs different time for absorbing steam before bending and then different time for drying. The most frequently processed wood is beech as it shows the best characteristic features for this kind of technology. Although TON has implemented modern machinery to the manufacturing process; some operations done manually can never be substituted. It is only man who is capable of insetting wood full of saturated steam into a mold and securing it with a special metal plate preventing the bent wood from cracking. It is man who is trained for this procedure for several months and who apart from strength in his hands mainly uses his sense.

The Present
…design and quality
Together with designers we refresh traditional manufacturing procedures with new shapes, while the famous quality stays unaffected. We distribute our products to more than 60 countries around the world. We can arrange contracts involving a single chair or those for hundreds of pieces for hotels, restaurants, cafés, dining halls, churches or retired people´s homes. We have received several prestigious awards – like the Good Design, the Red Dot Design Award, the Interior Innovation Award, the German Design Award, the Furniture of the Year and the Czech Grand Design awards.