Designer of the Barcelona Chair

Mies Ludwig van der Rohe 1886 - 1969

Mies Van der Rohe was a contemporary of Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius (the founder of the Bauhaus School), Mies is one of the original instigators of the Modernist Movement.

In the early 20th century modernism and minimalism were coming together in the work of Mies and his peers, while being actively promoted by the Bauhaus, the Deutsche Werkbund, and an organization called the 'Novembergruppe' (of which he was also a member).

1899 to 1903 Mies began his career at only 13 years of age - as a draughtsman in the Aachen stucco decoration workshop. Then from 1904 to 1907 he was an apprentice in the workshop of furniture designer Bruno Paul, while also studying at the school of Arts and Crafts in Munich.

From 1908 - 1911 he, like Le Corbusier and Gropius worked in the architectural offices of Peter Behrens. Leaving Behren's office he started his own architectural practice at only 25.

A few years later, as the First World War came to a close Mies' style was beginning to crystallize. His enthusiasm for Avant Gard ideas was reflected in his associations with the Novembergruppe - and his architectural designs were already showing a fondness for glass skyscrapers.

But it was only in the mid twenties, when he met and formed a personal and professional partnership with Lilly Reich the interior designer, (later to become the director of the Deutsche Werkbund), that he began to design laminated wood furniture, out of his own Berlin Apartment - registering a patent in 1927 for a tubular steel cantilever chair based on that of Mart Stam. The MR chair or 'M20 Chair' as it was called has been described as "a sophisticated and elegant aesthetic response to the earlier, slightly more prosaic uses of the cantilever in contemporary furniture." (Oxford Dictionary of Modern Design pg282). The chair was manufacturer by the Joseph Muller Metal Company, and just like his later designs it required a great deal of handcrafting, and was very expensive to make.

It was this chair that made Mies famous at first, catapulting him into the international limelight. Establishing and cementing his philosophy of 'Refined Comfort', the 'M20', has a simple curved frame with a cane seat - affording sufficient 'give' in the back to almost psychologically mimic the imagined comfort of an old fashioned armchair. Compact, light weight and yet elegant its space saving comfort was immediately a worldwide success.

The famous 'Barcelona X Chair' chair followed in 1929, a design created together with Lilly Reich for the his German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition. The Barcelona Chair design is said to be derived from his interpretation of an Egyptian royal folding chair and a Roman folding footstool, it came to define the genre, an icon for the era and perhaps the whole modern movement.

His career continued and blossomed first as the director of the Bauhaus school in Berlin 1930-1933 where he produced further innovative design successes - including his cantilevered design of the 'Brno' and the 'Tugendhat' chairs.

In 1931 manufacture of Mies' furniture including the Barcelona Chair was taken over by the Bamberg Metal workshops in Berlin , although there was a marked move away from what had been essentially a craft based mode of production when the production of the production of the cantilever chair was taken over by Thonet in 1932.

Then in the late 1930s as the 2nd world war approached Mies, like many of the Bauhaus teachers, had the foresight to relocate to the US, where he developed a world renowned architectural practice, producing some of his seminal works. Among them the Farnsworth House 1945-1950), the Lake Shore Drive Apartments in Chicago 1951 - 1958. He produced no more furniture after leaving Germany, (and Lilly Reich), although he did redesign the Barcelona Chair of the 1950s to take advantage of new manufacturing techniques and the invention of stainless steel. In 1948 license to produce the Barcelona Chair and a number of his other furniture designs were purchased by the wife of Hans Knoll, (Florence Knoll), whom Mies and Breuer had met while she was working for Gropius. In the 1960s Florence retired from Knoll, but the company continues to produce the Barcelona Chair to this day, together with a matching range of furniture not designed by Mies including the Barcelona Ottoman, Barcelona Daybed, Barcelona Benches two and three seat, Barcelona Sofas, Barcelona Coffee Table, and Barcelona Side Table.

Source :- http://www.barcelonachair.com/Mies.php

History of the Barcelona Chair

Graciously provided by ModernFurnitureClassic.com

Introduction:

Designed by Mies Van der Rohe and his long time partner and companion Lilly Reich the Barcelona chair is mostly misattributed to Mies alone. (ref:1)

It is perhaps difficult to comprehend today, but this icon of modernist style was actually designed in 1928. The chair was created as furnishing for one of Mies's many architectural jewels: The German Pavilion building at the Barcelona World Fair 1929. (ref: 2)

Marketing a country:

The twenty years leading up to the 1928 Barcelona Exhibition were a time of tremendous upheaval for all of Europe. Politically the landscape was changing faster and more dramatically than anyone could ever have imagined: Monarchies fell, revolutions raged, huge numbers of people were migrating from the Eastern block into Western Europe. Accelerating change and diversity propelled the fields of design and technology to reinvent themselves, almost entirely. Huge cultural shifts rocked Europe producing an explosion of artistic and literary creativity.

International trade, although not a new phenomena was accelerated - creating the beginnings of an interdependent global market place.

Governments around the world were straining to stabilize internal political forces, to settle their populace down into productive expansion, lest the political chaos of neighboring countries should spread.

After the first world war the German monarchy fell, and soon the country was swept into a painfully protracted battle between Communist and Fascist factions. The country was flooded with enormous numbers of refugees from the new Bolshevik states. The German government had an almost impossible task ahead of them. They, perhaps more than any other European nation, had to refocus the attentions of their peoples - on economic productivity.

It was in this environment that the plans for the 1928 Barcelona World Fair were conceived. Wanting and needing desperately to present Germany to the world (and to their own people too perhaps) as a stable, vibrant and modern cultural and economic entity.

An Historic Event

The exhibition was an occasion of international importance, attended by government officials from around Europe and of course by the Spanish Royals of the day Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg.

Victoria Eugenie was the grand daughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, who together with her beloved husband, Prince Albert, invented the concept of the World Fair, and in 1851 had been the honored guests of the first International world fair at Crystal Palance in London. Thus her grand daughter's visit to the Barcelona World Fair, would politically have been equivalent to an empirial seal of approval, bestowing tremendous significance on the whole event. (ref: 4)

Choosing Mies and Lily for this task.

For twelve years beginning in 1926 Mies was partnered both personally and professionally with a woman by the name of Lilly Reich. Lilly was a tremendously talented architect and designer known to have worked closely with Mies on his many projects of this period.

From 1912 following a meeting with Hermann Muthesius and his wife Ann, Lilly began working for the Deutscher Werkbund. An organization focused specifically on improving the quality of German design in Industry, and promoting German design and industry to the rest of the world. From 1915 to 1930's she was responsible for designing and organizing a variety of DWB's international exhibitions. Becaming the organizations first female member in 1921. From the time of their meeting in the mid 20's Mies collaborated with her on many of these exhibition design projects - until his departure for the US in 1938. Privately Mies is said to have deferred to Lilly and no one else. Publicly Lily always deferred to Mies. Of course this dynamic makes their respective contributions to joint projects somewhat difficult to trace, However all of Mies' furniture designs and most of his exhibit designs date from the 12 years of their partnership; he never produced any furniture designs before or after this time. (He issued is first patent on a furniture design in 1927 and his last in 1937) (ref: 3)

Their work in the fields of architecture, exhibition design and furniture design, as well as their affiliation to the Deutscher Werkbund made them the perfect choice for this commission.

The German Pavilion

A special building

The purpose of the German pavilion was of course to promote Germany's skills and expertise. Thus it was Mies's gargantuan responsibility to design something that would adequately represent and communicate Germany's technological and creative prowess - for the benefit of this cultivated and influential audience.

This building is perhaps the epitome of modernity. Shockingly modern even by todays standards - it must have looked positively futuristic to the fair's visitors of the day.

The modern design movement of the period was deeply influenced by technological developments, that made materials such as steel and plate glass, increasingly usable and accessible. So it was that Mies sought to construct his Pavilion from these new materials. Vast unbroken expanses of glass and steel, as well as marble and travertine, contrast with one another to produce a linear simplicity that is at once balanced and fascinating.

A special chair

The architecture of this building produced a space well suited to the display of art and design. The work of sculptor Georg Kolbe was showcased here to tremendous effect, and of course so was the Barcelona Chair itself.

The chair that he designed for the Pavilion is said to have been inspired by both the folding chairs of the Pharaohs and the X shaped footstools of the Romans. This regal and formal lineage was quite fitting and was no doubt intentional, affording this modern design an intellectual and cultural weight that would be appreciated by the highly educated audience, and would have been all the more obvious in such a futuristic environment. (ref: 5)

Although the chairs may conceptually have been intended to be thrones for the visiting royals, the general consensus is that they did not actually sit in them. However the Barcelona chair, sometimes referred to as the Pavilion chair, quickly gained a reputation as a design worthy of kings.

Manufacturing techniques and materials

The originals pre dated stainless steel and seamless (ground) welds so the legs had to be bolted together. The leather used in those first examples was pig skin, and the color of the chairs in the Pavilion was ivory. But todays Barcelona chair is not so very different. Mies re-designed the chair in 1950, making use of the newly developed material - stainless steel. This allowed the frame to be formed from a single piece of metal, and so it was that the bolts of the original were replaced by the smooth lines that we know and love today. The pig skin was too expensive for large scale commercial production so it has been replaced by bovine leather.

It went into commercial production almost immediately and in 1953, 6 years after Lily's death Mies licensed the rights of reproduction to Knoll, the current licensed manufacturer of the Barcelona Chair, and trade mark holder of the Barcelona name. (ref: 6) The chair has remained in production ever since, steadily growing in its notoriety and recognition through the years.

Philosophical incongruity:

Philosophically mid century modernists including Mies generally subscribed to the idea that modern furniture should be accessible to the masses, both financially and aesthetically. However the Barcelona chair is an exception to this rule. The materials and construction are too expensive, too labor intensive and therefor too costly to make it widely accessible, and furthermore its regal bearing and associations with royalty gave it an instant cache that has grown rather than diminished with time, and therefor has endeared itself to the educated and wealthy rather than to the masses. (ref: 7)

The Barcelona chair has inspired a tremendous variety of furniture designs. Some staying true to the original - use both the same 'X' style legs, and quilted / piped leather upholstery. Other variations are only subtly informed by the design - tufted leather combining with stainless steel to produce a myriad of shapes and styles.

The high quality leather, is hand sewn, individually stitched and piped, requiring some 28 hours of highly skilled labor to produce.

Although the original rights of reproduction were purchased by Knoll, reproductions of the Barcelona chair are today manufactured by a vast and diverse group of manufacturers. Each varying considerably in their price, quality and even specifics of the design.

Sources and Attributions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Eugenie_of_Battenberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Exposition

http://www.knoll.com/products/product.jsp?prod_id=577