The Barcelona Chair: A Monument to Modernism
The Place Where Comfort Meets Contemporaneity
Dec 30, 2008
When German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was commissioned to design the German Pavilion as his country’s entry to the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, the prospective building’s seating arrangements – or rather, the seat – quickly rose to the top of his agenda.
For him it had be quite simply, “[a]n important chair, a very elegant chair and costly. It had to be monumental.” The chair’s design became his idée fixe and the veritable cynosure of his and his design partner Lilly Reich’s thoughts. In the eighty years it has been a staple of modernist living environments perhaps few of the derrières it has accommodated have realised the obsession that brought the Barcelona Chair into being. But devotees do, and here we celebrate it.
The Chair as Monument
From the off, Mies brought an almost existential angst to the problems posed by the design of his Pavilion Chair. Prior to his 1929 commission, he was known for bringing his Modernist sensibilities to bear on grander and more tangible objects, like buildings and skyscrapers. The design of a chair, however, was to prove an enigma he had to work hard to crack: "The chair is a very difficult object. Everyone who has ever tried to make one knows that. There are endless possibilities and many problems - the chair has to be light, it has to be strong, it has to be comfortable. It is almost easier to build a skyscraper than a chair."
The Barcelona Chair: Ancient & Modern
The genius of Mies and Reich’s Barcelona design remains its ability to subvert not only our expectations, but our first impressions, too. For the chair is at once achingly modern and unexpectedly atavistic – a marriage of ancient world utility and modernist ostentation which pleases the aesthetic eye from every conceivable angle. From the intersection of chair’s legs to the slightly cocked – or un-perpendicular – carriage of the black checkerboard seat, the piece is redolent of a Roman footstool brought kicking and screaming into the twentieth-century.
The Barcelona Chair that we see today is largely the same one Mies and Reich unveiled in 1929. However, in 1950, Mies chose to avail himself of a number of technological advancements that tweaked the chair’s aesthetics. These include the replacement of the original chrome legs with stainless steel ones, which afford the chair a more integrated and smooth design. The original ivory pig leather that was used to upholster the seat was also replaced by the black cow leather we are familiar with today.
Prices & Sizes
Original Mies & Reich Barcelona Chairs are sold exclusively by Knoll. The $4,000 price tag reflects the Knoll chair's undoubted craftsmanship and its certificate of authenticity. The accompanying ottoman/footstool comes in at just shy of $2,000.
However, like Arne Jacobsen, Eames, and Le Corbusier classics, there a number of faux or 'inspired-by' Barcelona Chairs on the market. Invariably, the price reflects the chair's material and craftsmanship. These chairs start at around $400; a faux Barcelona Chair and Ottoman comes in at $500; while faux Barcelona Ottomans are approximately $150.
A Knoll Barcelona Chair measures 29 1/2" W x 30" D x 30 1/4" H with a seat height of 17".
