The Barcelona Chair Wins the Wall Street Journal Unimprovable Award

The Barcelona Chair by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is named as one of eight “perfect things inspired by timeless and stylish locales” by The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything magazine. The Barcelona Chair was designed by Mies in 1929 as part of the German Pavilion at the Barcelona Exposition, from which the iconic lounge chair derived its name. An early mentor to Florence Knoll, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe granted Knoll the exclusive rights to manufacture The Barcelona Collection in 1948.

Future of Everything recognizes the inherent perfection of Mies’ original work and heralds the design’s lasting prevalence since its initial debut eighty-nine years ago. Design Editor Sarah Medford points out Mies’ masterful use of form, writing that the legendary architect and designer, “poeticized a simple X-shaped form, elongating the base so that the cantilevered seat appears to hover in the air.”

Medford also points out that, in addition to its beautifully sculptural form, The Barcelona Chair catapulted the Modernist interior into popular taste. She writes that, “By placing a pair of sleek Barcelonas at right angles to the wall, he unwittingly nailed the look of Modernist living rooms and apartment lobbies for decades to come.”