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Nearly a century ago, tubular steel inspired both Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair and new, lighter wheelchairs.

For his Model B3 chair—also called the Wassily chair, in honor of Kandinsky, who expressed admiration for its prototype—Breuer took inspiration from the elegant handlebars of a milkman’s bicycle, made of seamless tubular steel, a new material.

If you valued lumbar support above clean design, you would likely opt for another chair; but, as a piece of sculpture that you could plop down on, the Wassily chair’s equipoise has never been surpassed.

It is easy to call to mind the iconic Wassily chair, a tubular steel frame that looks like an oversized paper clip; or the Barcelona coffee table, a glass square whose lethal corners seem designed to dent an ankle or a toddler’s forehead.

But beyond the popularity of individual designs – from Breuer’s Wassily chair to Le Corbusier’s lounger – the Bauhaus had a huge influence on how we think about the home.