Objects that changed everyday life

Where

Gebrüder Thonet, Vienna, Austria

When

1859

Who

Michael Thonet, a German-born cabinet maker working in Vienna

Made with

Beech rods softened in steam and bent in iron moulds, with a cane seat; six wooden parts, ten screws and two nuts

Thonet's big discovery was bentwood: he heated strips of solid beech with steam until they could be bent into smooth curves, then dried them in metal moulds so they kept their shape. That let him build a light, strong café chair from just six bent parts held by ten screws and two nuts, which factory workers without special skills could put together. The parts of 36 chairs fitted in a crate of one cubic metre, so the chairs could be shipped flat-packed all over the world and assembled where they were sold. Gebrüder Thonet sold about 50 million No. 14s between 1859 and 1930, and the chair is still made today. It is often called the first mass-produced piece of furniture.

Where

Ford Motor Company, Detroit and then Highland Park, Michigan, USA

When

Made from October 1908 to May 1927

Who

Henry Ford, with the engineers Childe Harold Wills, Joseph Galamb and Eugene Farkas

Made with

Standard, interchangeable steel parts, put together on a moving assembly line from 1913

Early cars were hand-built and costly, toys for the rich. Henry Ford wanted a simple, tough car that a middle-class family could buy, drive and repair, and the Model T went on sale in 1908 at 850 dollars. In 1913 his Highland Park factory started a moving assembly line: the half-built car travelled past rows of workers, and each worker did one small job with parts that fitted every car. Cars came off the line far faster, so the price kept falling and sales kept rising. When the 15 millionth Model T rolled out on 26 May 1927, the car had changed how Americans lived, worked and travelled. Ford joked that a customer could have any colour "so long as it is black".

Where

Ibach, Schwyz, Switzerland

When

Soldier's knife 1891; officer's knife patented on 12 June 1897

Who

Karl Elsener, whose company became Victorinox

Made with

Steel blades and tools folding into one handle, held by springs; red plastic handles on most knives sold to the public

In 1891 the Swiss Army began issuing its soldiers a folding knife with a blade, a can opener and a screwdriver for taking their rifles apart. The first batch came from a German maker, so Karl Elsener, a cutler in Ibach, set out to make them in Switzerland. In 1897 he patented an improved knife for officers, with tools on both sides of the handle held by a clever shared spring; this is the knife the world now calls the Swiss Army knife. Its idea, many tools folded into one pocket-sized object, became a phrase: anything that does many jobs is called a "Swiss Army knife". In 1921 the company took the name Victorinox, joining his mother's name, Victoria, with "inox", the French word for stainless steel.

Where

Root Glass Company, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA

When

Designed and patented in 1915; on sale from 1916

Who

Earl R. Dean, a bottle designer at the Root Glass Company

Made with

Moulded glass

In 1915 Coca-Cola, tired of copycat drinks in look-alike bottles, asked glassmakers for a bottle so distinctive that you could recognise it by touch in the dark, or from a single broken piece. At Root Glass, Dean's team went to a library to look up the coca leaf and the kola nut. They found neither, but a picture of a ribbed, gourd-shaped cocoa pod in the Encyclopaedia Britannica gave Dean the idea for the curves and ribs. The design was patented in November 1915, and the new bottle was on sale in 1916. The shape became so well known that the bottle works like a logo you can hold, a famous lesson in packaging design.

Where

Piaggio, Pontedera, Italy

When

Patented on 23 April 1946

Who

Corradino D'Ascanio, an aircraft engineer, for Enrico Piaggio

Made with

A pressed-steel body that is also the frame, with the engine covered beside the rear wheel

After the war Piaggio's aircraft factory at Pontedera lay in ruins, and Italy needed cheap transport. Enrico Piaggio asked D'Ascanio, who disliked motorcycles as dirty and awkward, to design something better. His scooter had a step-through shape, so you sat on it as on a chair instead of sitting astride; the engine was hidden under covers so it could not dirty your clothes; and the gears were changed from the handlebar. The body itself carried the load, an idea from aircraft. On seeing the prototype Piaggio said it looked like a wasp, "vespa" in Italian, and the name stuck. The 1953 film Roman Holiday, with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck riding one through Rome, made it a symbol of freedom.

Where

Société Bic, Clichy, France

When

December 1950

Who

Marcel Bich's company; designed by its Décolletage Plastique design team

Made with

Clear polystyrene barrel, polypropylene cap and ink tube, and a tiny tungsten carbide ball

The ballpoint pen was invented by László Bíró, a Hungarian, whose design used a tiny rolling ball to spread thick ink. Marcel Bich licensed Bíró's patent, developed an ink that neither leaked nor clogged, and made pens so cheaply that people simply threw them away when they ran dry, a new habit: the disposable product. The barrel has six sides like a pencil, so it is easy to grip and does not roll off a desk, and it is clear so you can see how much ink is left. A tiny hole in the barrel keeps the air pressure the same inside and out, and since 1991 the cap has had a hole too, so that a swallowed cap is less likely to block someone's breathing. It is the world's best-selling pen: the 100 billionth was sold in September 2006. The Museum of Modern Art in New York keeps one in its collection.

Where

The Lego Group, Billund, Denmark

When

Plastic bricks from 1949; the modern brick patented on 28 January 1958

Who

The carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen

Made with

Moulded plastic, ABS since 1963

Ole Kirk Christiansen made wooden toys in Billund from 1932, and called his company Lego from the Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". In 1949 it began making plastic "Automatic Binding Bricks" with studs on top, but they did not grip each other well. In 1958 the company patented a new brick with hollow tubes underneath that clamp the studs of the brick below, so models stay together and pull apart cleanly. Godtfred saw the bricks as a whole system: every piece fits every other, and bricks made in 1958 still lock onto bricks made today. A tiny change of shape turned a toy into a way of building anything.

Where

Polaroid Corporation, USA

When

Announced in April 1972

Who

Edwin Land, Polaroid's founder and inventor of instant photography

Made with

Metal and leather-look panels; a folding body with mirrors inside

Earlier Polaroid cameras gave you an instant print, but you had to peel it apart, wait, and keep the chemicals off your hands. The SX-70 pushed the photo out on its own, and the picture slowly appeared in your hand within minutes. This was integral film: everything needed to develop the photo is sealed inside each print. The camera folds flat enough to slip into a coat pocket, and it is a single-lens reflex camera, meaning you look through the same lens that takes the picture. When Land introduced it, he pulled a folded SX-70 from his jacket and took five pictures in about ten seconds. Instant photos became a social habit: you took a picture and shared it on the spot.

Where

Sony, Tokyo, Japan

When

On sale in Japan from 1 July 1979

Who

Made at the request of Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka and launched by chairman Akio Morita

Made with

A metal-cased cassette player with light headphones

Ibuka wanted to listen to music on long business flights. Sony's engineers took a small tape recorder used by reporters, removed its speaker and recording parts, and added stereo sound and light headphones. Morita saw that young people would love it and pushed it into shops. For the first time you could carry your own music anywhere and listen alone while walking, travelling or exercising, which was a completely new habit. "Walkman" became the everyday word for any personal stereo. Sony stopped making cassette Walkmans in 2010, but the idea lives on in every phone and pair of earphones.

Where

Apple, California, USA

When

Announced on 9 January 2007; on sale in the US from 29 June 2007

Who

Apple under Steve Jobs; its design team was led by Jony Ive

Made with

A glass multi-touch screen, aluminium back and one home button

Phones in 2007 had small screens and rows of plastic keys. Steve Jobs presented the iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco as three things in one: a phone, an iPod for music and an internet device. Almost its whole front was a multi-touch screen that you worked with your fingers, pinching and swiping, and a keyboard appeared on the screen only when you needed one. When the App Store opened in 2008, anyone could add new programs, and the phone became a pocket computer, camera, map and music player. Nearly every smartphone since has followed its slab-of-glass shape. Jony Ive's other work is in Designers to know.

Where

Godrej & Boyce, Mumbai

When

Steel almirah from 1923; typewriter from 1955

Who

Godrej & Boyce, founded in 1897 by Ardeshir Godrej and his brother Pirojsha

Made with

Pressed and painted steel

Godrej began in 1897 by making locks, then fire-proof and burglar-proof safes. In 1923 it made a steel almirah: a plain grey cupboard with shelves and a locker built inside. Later sold as the Storwel, it became the cupboard where Indian families kept their clothes, jewellery and important papers. In 1955 Godrej made India's first home-grown typewriter. For decades Godrej typewriters, including models with keys in Indian languages like this Kannada one, photographed outside a government office in Mysuru, clattered in offices and at typing desks outside government buildings. Godrej stopped making typewriters in 2009 and is often called the world's last maker of office typewriters.

Where

First made in Redditch, England; made in Madras (now Chennai) since 1955

When

The Bullet name since 1932; Indian production since 1955

Who

Royal Enfield of England; then Enfield India, set up with Madras Motors

Made with

A heavy steel frame and a 350 cc single-cylinder engine

The first Bullet was made in England in 1932. In the early 1950s the Indian Army chose the Bullet for patrolling India's borders, and in 1955 Royal Enfield and Madras Motors set up Enfield India to assemble it in Madras, first from kits shipped from England. By 1962 every part was made in India. The British company changed its bikes over the years, but the Indian factory kept making almost the same machine for the army and for riders who loved its toughness. The Eicher group took over Enfield India in 1994 and renamed it Royal Enfield. The Bullet is often said to have the longest production run of any motorcycle.

Where

Hindustan Motors, Uttarpara, West Bengal

When

1958 to 2014

Who

Hindustan Motors, from the British Morris Oxford Series III

Made with

A steel monocoque body, meaning the body and frame are one strong shell

In 1956 Morris Motors sold the drawings and tools of its Morris Oxford Series III to Hindustan Motors, which turned it into the Ambassador. With few changes it stayed in production for over 50 years. Its strong body, roomy seats and simple, easily repaired engine suited India's roads, and for decades it was the car of government officials and the taxi of choice, including Kolkata's famous yellow taxis. Private buyers moved to newer, lighter cars from the 1980s, and production ended in May 2014. In 2017 the Ambassador name was sold to the French car group PSA, the owner of Peugeot.

Where

HMT watch factory, Bengaluru

When

The factory opened in 1961

Who

HMT (Hindustan Machine Tools), a government company, with Citizen Watch of Japan

Made with

A hand-wound mechanical movement in a steel case

Until 1961 India imported most of its watches. HMT, a public-sector company that made machine tools, set up a watch factory in Bangalore with help from Citizen of Japan, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru released its first batch of watches. The plain, sturdy, hand-wound Janata ("the people") became its most popular model, and in the 1970s and 1980s HMT was India's biggest supplier of wristwatches. Heavy losses later forced the watch division to close in 2016. Old Janatas are now collectors' pieces.

Where

Bajaj Auto, India

When

1972; petrol models until the mid-2000s; an electric Chetak since 2019

Who

Bajaj Auto, under Rahul Bajaj; based on Piaggio's Vespa Sprint

Made with

A pressed-steel body with a two-stroke engine beside the rear wheel

From the 1960s Bajaj made Vespas in India under licence from Piaggio. In 1971 the licence was not renewed because of new rules limiting foreign control of brands, but Bajaj could still use the tools and know-how it had, so from 1972 it sold the scooter under its own name: Chetak, after the horse of the warrior king Maharana Pratap. It carried whole families, its "Hamara Bajaj" ("Our Bajaj") advertisements became famous, and buyers waited years for delivery. Bajaj stopped making scooters in the mid-2000s to focus on motorcycles, then brought the Chetak name back on an electric scooter unveiled on 16 October 2019.

Where

Tata Motors; built at Sanand, Gujarat

When

Unveiled on 10 January 2008; on sale from 2009; made until 2018

Who

Tata Motors, from an idea of its chairman Ratan Tata

Made with

A small, light steel body with a 624 cc engine

Ratan Tata kept seeing families of four squeezed onto one scooter, with a child in front and a baby on the mother's lap, and wanted to give them a safer choice at a price they could afford: one lakh rupees. Tata's engineers questioned every part to cut cost, down to a single windscreen wiper and three nuts on each wheel instead of four. It was unveiled at the Auto Expo in New Delhi in 2008 as the world's cheapest car. Its factory had to move from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat after protests over farmland, which delayed it. Buyers did not want a car seen as "the cheapest", early fires hurt its name, and production ended in 2018. The Nano shows that people buy how a product makes them feel, not just its price. This one is in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.