Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, modernist architect and creator of the legendary Barcelona Chair, was one of the pioneers of the use of tubular steel in chair design, and had been much influenced by the work of contemporaries as well as the broader Bauhaus movement.

Mies van der Rohe’s earlier work had built on earlier Bauhaus designs by adding an aesthetic dimension, and he sought to produce a more stylish and less austere body of work. Hence the decision to create the Barcelona Chair not out of tubular but solid steel, which made the elegant scissor shape possible but added considerably to the weight of the chair. This was surely intentional on Mies van der Rohe’s part: after all, he specifically wanted to create what he called a ‘monumental object’ which is somehow incompatible with light weight. However, the Barcelona Chair remained true to one of Mies van der Rohe’s central philosophies – ‘no trivial ornamentation’.

The story of the development of the Barcelona Chair is well-known; as with all of Mies van der Rohe’s furniture, it sprang from an architectural commission – the German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition. Various influences are attributed to its creation, including Egyptian folding stools and Roman footstools; the cantilevered design itself is redolent of his earlier work, as well as that of Marcel Breuer. Certainly the Roman heritage is apt, given that the Pavilion itself had been heavily influenced by Roman works. Whatever: Mies van der Rohe was clear that the chair had to be sufficiently important to be able to ‘receive a king’. Although only two chairs were manufactured for the Exhibition itself, the chair was immediately put into wider production and has been iconic since that time.