06/07/2023
A Strandkorb is a special hooded windbreak seating furniture used at vacation and seaside resorts, constructed from wicker, wood panels and canvas, usually seating up to two people, with reclining backrests. It was designed to provide comfort seating and shelter from wind, rain, sand gusts and sunburn on beach seafront resorts frequented by tourists. Other built-in details, like extendable footrests, sun awning, side folding tables and storage space, provide the user with several comforts.
Strandkörbe are found at nearly all beach seafront resorts of the North Sea and Baltic Sea in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, as well as other beach seafronts where sudden fluctuations in adverse weather conditions and wind gusts can prevail. The Strandkorb beach-chair is considered a cult object of German Gemütlichkeit, which has survived two world wars, social and industrial revolutions and the East-West divide of Germany. From spring to autumn, they can usually be rented from beach-chair wardens (German Strandkorbwärter). Two different shapes can be distinguished, the straight angular North Sea variety and the round rolling Baltic Sea variety.
The "Strandkorb" beach-chair was invented in 1882 by German basket maker Wilhelm Bartelmann in Rostock, originally for his customer Elfriede Maltzahn, who suffered from rheumatism and had requested in his workshop a "seating accommodation for the beach that would provide shelter from the sun and wind". Bartelmann's family were basket makers from Lübeck. At age 25, Wilhelm opened his own basket weaving workshop in Rostock, where he also became court appointed basket-maker to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Bartelmann's "beach-chair" caused such great sensation among other beach-visitors, who also wanted to sit comfortably at the beach, that demand for his "Strandkorb" soared. In 1883, Bartelmann's wife Elisabeth, opened the first "Strandkorb" rental service near Warnemünde Lighthouse in Warnemünde. The first prototype models were single seaters and appeared quickly on other parts of the German coast, a year later Bartelmann also developed a two-seater version. Since about 1910, the standard Strandkorb beach-chair model, is a two-seater, its design and construction has changed little since.
Thomas Mann refers to Strandkorbs (using the words Strandkorb and Sitzkorb) in his 1901 novel Buddenbrooks, anachronistically setting the context in the 1840s on the beach at Travemünde.
