Give Your Home A 1920s Twist With The Barcelona Chair

By Author: carina coronel
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The iconic and classic designer chair, favoured by a selective audience, was made in 1929 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich for Germany's entry to the Ibero-American Exposition in Seville, Spain. Taking inspiration from ancient history such as the Pharaohs and Romans the legendary chair, also known as the Pavilion Chair, marked a milestone in furniture design of the 1920s.

Typical 1920s furniture was luxurious, sophisticated in style and very glamorous in design. Mies and Reich strayed from the conventional and introduced clean, minimalist lines, drawing on Mies legacy of favouring simplicity and clarity alongside a balanced blend of creativity and rationality. This approach led to the creation of a chair which has a definitive place in history as an icon of modern design; a piece symbolic of the longstanding relationship between Mies and Reich.

Whilst the labour intensive construction process has not been replaced, the original use of pig's skin for the covering and the bolting together of the legs were altered by Mies redesign in 1950. He instead used bovine leather for the covering and introduced the ...
... smooth and continuous lines of a single stainless steel frame for the chair to be built around. The classic ivory colouring remained, and still remains an integral feature of the Barcelona Chair 80 years on.

Today, the classic Barcelona Chair remains exclusive, excelling in popularity among the well-off and culturally intelligent, retailing for approximately £4,500. Its reputation has not faltered over time, leading to a vast amount of reproductions being available on the market. Genuine, high quality reproductions do not disregard the intensive labour which went into making the original Barcelona Chair; the formal and royal influences are maintained through continuous attention to detail, ensuring quality is at the forefront of reproducing an iconic masterpiece.

Despite this, it's easy to be duped into buying a low quality product without knowing it. To ensure your replica Barcelona chair is of the highest standard, there are a few main tells you can keep an eye out for. Are the cushions of the correct proportion? Many cheaper reproductions have cushions which are too large. Not only does this throw off the carefully considered proportions of Mies and Reich's design, it can also be indicative of lower quality materials. You don't want a beautiful chair that's no good for sitting on because it's stuffed full of cheap foam. Also check the cushions don't move about on the frame. The best quality reproduction Barcelona chairs have strong poppers and rivets which secularly attach the cushions to the frame. Cushions which are too loose can again impair comfort.

The Barcelona chair remains a testament to the artistic genius of its creators. Don't compromise on style when it comes to buying your replica.

The Barcelona Chair Company are specialist suppliers of genuine high quality reproductions. Every chair is subject to meeting exceptionally high quality assurance standards and is inspected at least twice before being dispatched. Learn more about their high quality chair.