Wire Steel Light Blue Bench Settee ‘Astoria’ Sonett, Karl Fostel, Austria, 1950s

A set of three matching chairs model ‘Auersberg’ is also available (see last two images).

The tubular steel furniture factory Karl Fostel Sen.’s Erben, founded in 1890, specialized in modern garden furniture made of steel and light metal after the Second World War.
Based on the tradition of metal furniture, the company developed its own line for modern garden furniture with the ‘SONETT’ series,
which corresponded to the international trend after the Second World War.
Garden furniture in iron was known from the 19th century, now new forms have been developed through the use of steel pipe and steel wire.
New was the use of steel wire instead of steel tube, a more variable design of the contours. This is particularly evident in the ‘Auersperg’ and ‘Astoria’ models in the early 1950s. The ‘Auersperg’ model was developed in collaboration with the architects V. Mödlhammer and JO Wladar, who gave the winter garden of the Viennese Palais Auersperg in 1952 “an elegant, tasteful note based on the latest findings in architecture and interior design”

Lit.:
Das Moderne Heim, Austrian magazine for architecture, interior decoration and garden design, episode 12/13, Vienna 1954, p. 36.