The Barrel Chair by Frank Lloyd Wright

An Interwar American Classic That Straddles Two Worlds

Feb 17, 2009

The Barrel chair sits at the crux of the early Modernist movement, looking back to the 19th century for inspiration and in its turn inspiring later designers.

Like fellow designer/architect Mies van der rohe, Lloyd Wright was obsessed with the marriage of furniture and location. Numbering among his architectural achievements the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Tokyo's Imperial Palace hotel, Wright knew not a little about the necessary congruence furniture and building must possess if the inhabitants are to get the best of both.

That "[e]very chair must be designed for the building it will be in,” was a mantra that he repeated throughout his life; and the chair he designed for the Wisconsin home of businessman Herbert Johnson is a vivid example of how right he was. The Barrel chair is an interwar American classic and docket of a design ethos that bore some of the sweetest fruit of the Modernist movement.

Barrel Chair: A Mix of Old & New

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Wright's chair is its uncanny ability to evoke two worlds - indeed, two epochs - of design. For the chair's strutted semi-circular back means that it bears more than a passing resemblance to a number of high-backed chairs from the 19th century, especially the Louis XV and Edwardian chairs from the latter end of that century. These chairs were early efforts at affording the sitter a more encapsulating chair design and more intimate sedentary experience. They achieved their results - as indeed the Barrel does - by intersecting the merdian described by the backrest's barrel with a circular seat arrangement.

Although Wright's Barrel chair is very much in this 19th century vein, it is a more consummate example of the style. Unlike the earlier examples of the chair, Wrights 1904 blueprint and 1937 finished product isn't supported by the cabriole legs familiar to its antecedents. Instead, it supports itself with an integrated arrangement that is more germane to the piece. The closely palisaded struts or slats that form the backrest are also more pleasing to the eye than the crude lattice work of earlier chairs of the type, as too are the later chair's soft curves and the concentric dome of the seat's cushion. This latter feature sits nicely ensconced within the greater circumference of the encompassing hardwood seat and is a perfect Modernist coup de grace to imputations of anachronism.

Wood Design & Modernism

It is perhaps strange to think now, but when Lloyd Wright was in his pomp he was largely alone in working with wood and contemporary designers were slow to follow his lead . Lloyd Wright believed designers in the West had as yet failed to fully exploit the material. In a lecture of 1910, he remarked: "with the exception of the Japanese, wood has been misused and mishandled everywhere." Without doubt, his Barrel chair went a long way to redressing the West's awkward relationship with wood and inspired the next generation of workers in the material - the Eameses and Lucian Ercol the most preeminent.

Barrel Chair Prices and Sizes

Today, the Lloyd Wright Barrel chair is manufactured under license by the Italian company Cassina. It is available in American cherry wood in two finishes: natural and stained walnut. It retails at £1,725.88.

The copyright of the article The Barrel Chair by Frank Lloyd Wright in Collectibles is owned by Christopher Wilson. Permission to republish The Barrel Chair by Frank Lloyd Wright in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.