The Wall Street Journal Praises the Iconic Barcelona® Chair from Knoll

March 13, 2014

The Wall Street Journal pays tribute to the Barcelona® Chair, calling it the height of the “height of Mies-ly design“ following the release of Mies, a new monograph by Detlef Mertins that paints “Mies as a focal player in the International Style movement that revolutionized industrial architecture in the '40s and '50s.”

David Coleman of The Wall Street Journal highlights the chair’s history in the March 7, 2014 piece. The Barcelona® Chair was designed by Mies van der Rohe for the opening reception of the 1929 International Exposition at the German Pavilion in Barcelona. Also designed by Mies, the pavilion “a serene and severe series of interlocking planes of marble, travertine, onyx and glass” required “two chairs for the King and Queen of Spain, prompting Mies to create his seats (and matching Barcelona stools),” continues Coleman.

The now-signature “steel, curving X-shaped frames were suggestive of classic folding campaign furniture and ancient Roman curule chairs, with unusually broad, tufted seats in white leather.”

In 1948, Mies worked with Knoll to produce the chair in the United States following its manufacturing success in Europe. Since then, Knoll has produced more than 20,000 Barcelona® Chairs.

Today, Knoll still manufactures the 85-year-old masterpiece, which is currently available in “five grades of leather and more than 900 colors.”

Commenting on the versatility of the Barcelona Chair for residential designs, Matthew Patrick Smyth, a New York-based interior designer, said, “I like to use it in a very tailored, clean space where it can breathe. But [the décor] definitely doesn't have to be modern—it could be Louis XVI.”

“Glenn Gissler, another New York interior designer, choose classic black leather for the Barcelona chair, stool and couch in the Manhattan apartment he designed for Michael Kors,” writes Coleman.