The Unique Barcelona Chair Made By The Hands Of The Famous Designer Mies van der Rohe
In a profession that spans more than half the 20th century, the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe made not just buildings but furniture too. With the assistance of German interior designer Lilly Reich, Mies van der Rohe designed various furnishings for use in the interiors of his architectural projects. One work that is recognized by a lot to be his top work in modern furniture is the self-styled Barcelona chair.
The key piece in the Barcelona furniture group, the Barcelona chair is a light steel chair designed by Mies van der Rohe during 1928 and 1929. The chair was purposely-done for the German Pavilion, a transient presentation building Mies van der Rohe designed to epitomize Germany at the 1929 Salon d’ Automne art display in Barcelona, Spain (hence its name).
A master of modern design, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair was certainly clear and simple. The chair’s cross-like frame is inspired on the ancient Egyptian folding chair and the Roman “sella curulis” courts’ chair, and made from parts of chrome-plated steel. Barcelona Chairs made after the 1950s, however, displayed stainless steel frames as stainless steel made it possible for the border to be created into just one piece. The cushions of the chair are finished from either natural or synthetic filling, and layered with white pigskin and black leather. And to keep them firmly in place, the cushions are placed to the chair through specially-designed press stud fixings.
After its victorious introduction at the International Exposition, the Barcelona chair was reproduced in small quantities in Europe and the US until the 1950s, when Florence Knoll acquired the rights to manufacture the chair from Mies van der Rohe. Now, the Knoll creator furniture business remains as a greatest manufacturer of the Barcelona chair, even if reproductions from other manufacturers are also widely obtainable.
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