Home Improvements & Repairs

In a profession that spans more than half the 20th century, the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed not only buildings but furniture as well. 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 so-called Barcelona chair.

The key piece in the Barcelona furniture collection, the Barcelona chair is a light steel chair created by Mies van der Rohe between 1928 and 1929. The chair was intentionally-made for the German Pavilion, a momentary exposition building Mies van der Rohe made to epitomize Germany at the 1929 Salon d’ Automne art display in Barcelona, Spain (hence its name).

A leader of modern design, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair was definitely clear and simple. The chair’s cross-like frame is inspired on the old Egyptian folding chair and the Roman “sella curulis” courts’ chair, and made from pieces of chrome-plated steel. Barcelona Chairs made after the 1950s, but, featured stainless steel frames as stainless steel made it possible for the border to be formed into just one piece. The cushions of the chair are made from either natural or synthetic filling, and layered with white pigskin and black leather. And to keep them firmly in place, the cushions are attached to the chair via specially-designed press stud fixings.

After its triumphant introduction at the International Exposition, the Barcelona chair was reproduced in limited numbers in Europe and the US until the 1950s, when Florence Knoll obtained the rights to manufacture the chair from Mies van der Rohe. Today, the Knoll creator furniture company remains as a leading manufacturer of the Barcelona chair, even if reproductions from other manufacturers are also widely available.

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