“God is in the details.” said Mies. Behind its apparent simplicity, the Barcelona reveals a geometric work that’s almost a brainteaser in itself. Its gracile steel frame with parallel chisels softly espouses the forms of the ground with its two perpendicular leather cushions. In hand stitched pig skin, it demands several hours of work of a very large workforce. “A chair is a very difficult object to make. Anyone who’s already tried to make them knows this. There are infinite possibilities, and many problems – the chair has to be light, it has to be solid, it has to be comfortable. It’s practically easier to construct a skyscraper than a chair.” declared Mies. But is the Barcelona really comfortable? That is not the question, for it’s its aestheticism and the aura it possesses that have won its success since 1929.
In that year, the German government mandated the architect to represent Germany for the Universal Exposition in Barcelona. Mies wasn’t known yet for his saying “Less is more” but already his sense of pure aestheticism in favor of functionality was felt in the pavilion he erected to the glory of German savoir-faire. His case of glass and marble redefined circulation in the space where interior and exterior interpenetrated one another thanks in part to an ingenious positioning of the walls. Mies wanted next to conceive the furnishings that would adorn the pavilion.
A member of the Bauhaus school, he concurred with other modernists in thinking that modern furniture should be practical and accessible to the masses financially as well as aesthetically. “I’m not opposed to form, but only form as the end goal.” he said in 1927. Without a doubt, the Barcelona is the exception that proves the rule. For Mies, a functionalist before Eternity, broke here with his principles of practicalness accessible to everyone to give priority only to aestheticism. The pavilion itself had no function. It’s only task was to represent the vivacity of Germany’s architecture schools; it’s only point was to show, like a show room. With the Barcelona Mies pushed the vice a bit further. His costly materials and complex fabrication render them inaccessible and costly. Intended to serve as a throne for Spanish King Alfonso XIII and his wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg, he took inspiration from the folding chairs of the pharaohs and the cross-shaped stool of the Romans. Mies explained one year after the exposition, “It had to be a significant chair, an elegant and onerous chair. It had to be monumental. We simply couldn’t use a kitchen chair.”
Alas, it was destined to be a labor lost; the royal couple hardly sat in the leather throne. Despite everything, Mies still got it right, and the chair was an immediate success and is still relevant today. In the 70s, Austrian-American designer Victor Papanek showed that numerous young architects were saving up to be able to have a piece of the luxury of a Barcelona. Possessing one of Mies’ chairs was more of a personal treasure than a functional ends. Is that not very essence of Luxury? . In 1950, Mies redesigned his model with stainless steel. The ensemble preserved its elegant silhouette, but while the original’s pieces were bolted together, the steel allowed it to have a frame made of one single piece in fluid metal. Three years later, the architect ceded his exclusive rights to German company Knoll Studio. But since the chair was created in 1929, his fabrication wasn’t protected by a patent. Conceived for royal ends, reserved for a better-off class, it’s nevertheless thanks to its industrial imitations that the Barcelona has finally become accessible to a great number of people, just like Mies wanted.
Leave a Reply