Mies van der Rohe: Barcelona Chair
Chrome plated flat steel frame. Loose cushions filled with PU-foam on saddle leather straps. Coverings made of individually stitched and piped leather pieces.
We recommend chosing "Florida" leather for the Barcelona Chairs, since its finer structure and slightly thinner material goes best with the individual piping.
Dimensions: 75 x 75 x 75 cm ( W x D x H )
usually ships within: two weeks
This design is called "Barcelona Chair" today, because Mies van der Rohe created it for the "Deutscher Werkbund" Pavilion at the Barcelona World Exposition of 1929. The original version was covered with white pig leather.
Two of these chairs and matching ottomans were meant to be used by the King and Queen of Spain on occasion of their official visit to the exposition. It never happened, the cerimony was too brief and the Majesties rushed off after a few minutes.
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| Reproductions of the first Barcelona Chairs in the reconstructed German Pavillion. | Barcelona Chairs in Philip Johnsons Glass House. Philip Johnson was an architect and the first director of the MoMA in New York |
Despite its "machine made" appearance, the Barcelona Chair is almost 100% hand made. The frames are made of solid, mirror polished and chrome plated suspension steel and achieving the seamless weldingsrequires extreme craftsmanship. The leather upholstery is made of individually cut, stitched and piped leather pieces.
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| Polishing of a metal frame before electroplating. | Barcelona Chair Frames in the final chrome bath |
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| Each piece of the upholstery is hand cut. The pipings are made of nylon strings wrapped in leather. | And even each of the 24 buttons is made of a circular piece of matching leather and aluminium. |
Such extensive labour demands its price. When the Barcelona Chair was first manufactured by "Metallgewerbe Joseph Müller" in Berlin it cost 520 Reichsmark. As a comparison, Mies van der Rohe as director of the Bauhaus was earning 5.000 Reichsmark per year at the same time.
Compared to this, the price at steelform.com in our days seems incredibly cheap, doesn't it?
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| Barcelona Chairs at various locations. | |
- The frames are made of a thinner profile, low grade stainless steel, which may result in bending or even breaking with time.
- The metal finish looks yellowish and rather bumpy and can stand no comparison with an immaculate chrome plating.
- The leather used on those is referred as "Italian Leather" which is a highly corrected split leather with an often pungent chemical smell.
- Last but not least: if the price seems too good to be true, you will probably not get what you wanted
We love design furniture too much to be selling poor copies. Our collection is thoroughfully manufactured in Italy.