Barcelona Chair in Black or White Leather
Available in a choice of Black or White.
Delivery is normally seven days - call your local London, Essex or Northampton store for more details.
View in our office furniture stores in Walthamstow, City, Northampton, Fulham, Edgware, London, Wellingborough, Daventry, Kettering, Bedford,Hackney, Romford, Stratford, and Milton Keynes office furniture stores
Store Contact Numbers
Camden 020 7609 0737
Edgware 020 8452 5331
Edmonton 020 8803 1523
Hackney 020 7739 8301
Northampton 01604 637 979
Romford 01708 766 498
Stratford 020 8555 8513
Sales 0800 559 3917
The Barcelona chair was exclusively designed for the German Pavilion, that country's entry for the International Exposition of 1929, which was hosted by Barcelona, Spain. The design resulted from collaboration between the famous Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his longtime partner and companion, architect and designer Lilly Reich, whose contributions have only recently been acknowledged. An icon of modernism, the chair's design was inspired by the campaign and folding chairs of ancient times.
Lilly Reich began working for the deutscher werkbund organisation whose maison d'etre was to focus specifically on the German design industry, its quality, evolution and promotion. Reich was responsible for designing and organizing many of the Werkbund's international exhibitions, and in 1921 became the organization's first female member.
Reich and van der Rohe met in the mid-1920s and collaborated on many of these exhibition design projects until he departed for the United States in 1938. While Reich always deferred to van der Rohe in public, the reverse was said to have been the case in private. While it is naturally difficult to apportion the contributions that each made to a particular design, it is interesting and poignant to note that van der Rohe never again produced any furniture designs after their partnership ended, nor had he designed any furniture beforehand. His first patent on a furniture design was issued in 1927 and his last in 1937.
Reich's affiliation with the Deutscher Werkbund and her architectural work with van der Rohe on their exhibition design and furniture design made them the natural choice for the Commission to design the German Pavilion in Barcelona.
