Banu Low Stool

Banu is yet another gem from the Jewel Garden, which was the name of the Maharajah‘s palace of Indore for which Eckart Muthesius designed this stool. Through the use of polished stainless steel and a highly demanding working process, the frame appears, from all sides, to be made of a single piece. The exquisite, elegant stool decorated the bathroom of the Maharani. A slightly different version travelled on tracks through India – in the legendary saloon carriage of the Maharajah.

Following his studies at the Associated State School for Applied Arts in Berlin and the London Polytechnic, Eckart Muthesius became a master student in the studio of his father, Hermann Muthesius, cofounder of the Deutscher Werkbund. In 1929 Muthesius met Prince Yeshwant Rao Holkar Bahadur in Oxford, the later Maharajah of Indore, who commissioned him to build and furnish his Manik Bagh palace – and within four years Muthesius created a masterpiece of the Art Deco style.

The architectural design of the palace as well as the design of many of the furniture and lamps were created by himself. Together with avant-garde pieces by Marcel Breuer, Charlotte Perriand or Eileen Gray, he combined them to create a masterful total work of art. From 1936 to 1939, Muthesius was also head of the urban planning and redevelopment department of the state of Indore. When war broke out, he had to leave India and returned to Berlin, where he worked as a freelance architect.