Robert Slezák, Bystřice pod Hostýnem

The company was founded by Robert Slezák as a locksmith and metalworking workshop in 1908 in Bystřice pod Hostýnem. In 1911 he expanded it with a galvanizing plant and in 1913 he started to produce brass furniture. In 1921, due to a lack of non-ferrous metals, he produced iron, white lacquered furniture, especially for hospitals. In 1931, he obtained a license from Thonet to manufacture spring-loaded seating furniture from seamless steel tubes, surface-treated with hard chrome plating. Thanks to close cooperation with the neighboring company Thonet, which used its galvanizing plant and vice versa, it supplied him with wooden bent and pressed parts. Slezák did not have his own designer and therefore mostly used Thonet designs, which he consistently referred to in the catalogs.
In 1948, the company was nationalized and incorporated into the national company Kovona.