A Modern Chair That’s Fit for a King: The Barcelona Chair
June 26th, 2009One of the restricted furniture drawings for the German Pavilion, the Barcelona Chair was Germany’s official entry to the Ibero-American Expo of 1929 held in the city of Barcelona, Spain. The design of the chair was created by the popular Bahaus designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in cooperation with his longtime partner Liliy Reich, who was also a designer and an architect. A highly popular design during its time, the chair is assessed as one of the most known icons of the modernism movement.
According to its designers, the Barcelona Chair was influenced by the campaign and folding chairs of the classical period. The chair has also exposed inspiration from the works of the well-known sculptor George Kolbe. Because of its alternation of regal design into a modern setting, the chair and its designers instantly garnered applause of critics during the Ibero-American Expo, calling the chair “a design worthy of kings”. Also, the chair was made with the Bahaus idea in mind, combining the concept of giving well-designed furnishings and residences for the common man. However, given the chair’s astonishing price of $6,281 at that time, it seemed contrary to this sentiment.
The frame of the Barcelona Chair was basically designed to be bolted together but was later rebuilt during the 1950s to incorporate stainless steel, granting the frame to be conceived using an absolute piece of metal. This gave the chair a polished appearance as well as the additional bonus of being corrosion-resistant due to the stainless steel’s properties. The chair’s upholstery was also originally made of ivory colored pigskin, but was later restored by bovine leather.
The Barcelona Chair was originally built in fixed stock within the United States and among European countries during 1930s and late 1950s. Then in 1953, six years after the death of Lilly Reich, Miers van der Rohe submit his rights and his name on the design.
The Barcelona Chair’s operative design and accordant elements were engrossed by Mies van der Rohe in Spain. Germany and the United States of America during the 1930s, but it has long since discontinued. This led to the explosion of Barcelona Chair designs being manufactured worldwide to keep up with the request of collectors and modernist aficionados alike.
Today, the Barcelona Chair is generally created in two dissimilarcontrasting types of steel: chrome and stainless. The chairs are almost completely done by hand, with absolute machining exclusions on several parts of the body.
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