World-renowned for both his furniture and architectural design, Lugwid Mies Van Der Rohe furniture is always proportional, remarkably streamlined, and stunning to behold.
Early Years
Beginning his career as an architect in Berlin, by the mid-1920’s Mies Van Der Rohe had begun to experiment with furniture design. In the beginning, he created pieces to coordinate with specific interiors he was working on. In 1927, he met Lilly Reich, a Bauhaus alumnus who worked with Mies Van Der Rohe on the first examples of what would become one of his hallmark designs: a cantilevered chair with a tubular steel frame. The Van Der Rohe/Reich collaboration culminated in the impeccable Brno chair designed between 1929 and 1930 with a chromed flat steel frame. The Brno style was expanded later into several other Brno pieces, including the Brno Armchair.
Birth of The Barcelona Chair
Two years later, created for the German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition, Mies Van Der Rohe and Lilly Reich designed what might be considered Van Der Rohe‘s most famous design: The Barcelona Chair. Intended as a modern throne, set upon a frame of curved metal in the shape of an X, thick leather cushions, with a nod toward classical furniture, this was a study in perfect proportions. The Barcelona chair was simple, authoritative and beautiful.
Barcelona Chairs soon became status symbols and hugely popular in both the secular and design world, and have since enjoyed steadily increasing sales and production worldwide. Mies Van Der Rohe re-designed the Barcelona chair in 1950 in order to take advantage of stainless steel, which had become available due to recent advancements in technology.
Other Mies Van Der Rohe furniture of note includes the following pieces: Armchair, Barcelona Ottoman, Barcelona Table, Coffee Table, Barcelona Bed (Barcelona Daybed), Barcelona Bench, Two Seat Bench, Chaise Lounge, Barcelona Bench, Three Seat Bench.