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Banu Low Stool
MINIMAL AND VERSATILE
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.
Low Stool. Frame chrome-plated flat steel. Beech seat frame. Upholstery polyurethane with polyester fibre. Covered in classic.
Leather by Classicon.
Dimensions
W. 52cm (20 15/32”) D. 42cm (16 17/32”) H. 46cm (18 1/8”)
DESIGNEr
ECKART MUTHESIUS
Eckart Muthesius
Banu Low Stool
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.
MANUFACTURER
CLASSICON
Good furniture is like a good friend: somebody we like to have around and who accompanies us through life, wherever it may take us. We have been producing this kind of furniture since 1990. At the time, ClassiCon emerged from the traditional Vereinigte Werkstätten in Munich.
The licenses for the designs by famous designers of classic modernism, including Eileen Gray, Eckart Muthesius and Otto Blümel, formed the cornerstone for today’s collection. Soon, furniture by contemporary designers such as Sebastian Herkner, Neri & Hu, Konstantin Grcic and Jader Almeida followed. From the beginning, ClassiCon intentionally created a suspenseful relationship between classics and contemporary design. Owner Oliver Holy has had a lasting impact on the family-run company with his passion for design, architecture and art for almost 20 years now. Since mid-2024, he and CEO Timotheus Günak have been jointly managing ClassiCon.
Design, function and quality at the highest level plus a good amount of emotion – this is our vision: furniture design that convinces and accompanies people through their lives, something reliable and beautiful that is used and appreciated and, in the best case, passed down.
How much spirit of departure does a piece of furniture contain? At ClassiCon, you will only find innovative furniture that expresses the courage to depart from familiar ground. Some of the pieces carry big names, and each can look back on a proud design history, sometimes over several decades or even an entire century. Others, however, are only at the beginning of writing their own big stories.
We consider it our task to accompany and enable a multitude of such stories – now and in the future. For this purpose, we are continuously expanding our partner network and engage in intensive dialogs with international designers, often young and unknown.
Local craft businesses that bring design ideas to life through their skills and expertise play an equally important role for us. Through our production methods, we aim to bring this craftsmanship and wealth of experience to light and secure it for the future.
Designs from the ClassiCon collection can be found in museum collections around the world. Rare and precious originals by Eileen Gray, for example, are owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the National Museum of Ireland and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the meantime, designs by our contemporary designers have found a place in collections: classics of the future are exhibited or archived in various contexts. They represent formal innovation, originality and quality. With each selection, we are delighted about the success of the designers and the confirmation of our work.
Classicon Headquarters