Barcelona Chair

Overview

The Barcelona® Chair is the lounge chair of Knoll's Barcelona Collection. Knoll credits it to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1929 and lists it with a choice of standard or relaxed cushions covered in leather, suede or fabric, on a polished chrome, stainless steel or ultra-matte onyx frame.

Construction

• Steel frame, hand-ground and hand-buffed in polished chrome or finished in ultra-matte onyx
• Each cushion is made from 40 individual squares of leather, suede or fabric, hand-welted and hand-tufted with buttons; in leather all squares come from a single cowhide
• Belting leather straps with edges dyed to match secure the cushions to the frame
• The designer's signature and the Knoll logo are stamped into the frame
• The canted seat holds the sitter in a relaxed yet supported position

Specifications

• W 29½" × D 30" × H 30¼" (749 × 762 × 768 mm); seat height 17", seat width 29½", seat depth 19⅝"
• Weight 47 lb; comes fully assembled

From pavilion to production

Wikipedia credits the chair to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe together with Lilly Reich, for the pavilion that Germany showed at the 1929 Barcelona fair. Its account of the frame is that it was first designed to be bolted together and was redesigned in 1950 in stainless steel, so that it could be formed from a seamless piece of metal with a smoother look. The same article says bovine leather replaced the ivory-coloured pigskin of the original pieces.

Image source: Knoll — Barcelona Chair · © Knoll and the respective rights holders. Quoted to accompany INTEBEE's independent design commentary and research. · View official product page ↗ · Image use & copyright policy

Year and credit

Knoll's own pages credit the design to Mies alone and give 1929 as its year, while Wikipedia names Lilly Reich as co-designer. The dates for the production rights and for the start of Knoll's production, and the origin of the name, differ between Knoll and Wikipedia and are set out in the Barcelona Collection article.