Furniture Design - Project 1

PHOTO ESSAY

SKETCHES

EXPLODED PERSPECTIVE DRAWING

CONTEXTUAL ESSAY

Barcelona Chair

( Ludwing Mies van der Rohe designer, 1929 )

Mies van der Rohe was a German-born American architect, who is widely regarded as one of the most influential architects in the modern movement. He also was the modern architecture precedent who had a lifelong desire and purpose to create a new architectural language that could be used to represent the new era of technology and production. Moreover his design principle “Less is more,” became the foundation for German Modernism and later the Minimalist movement.

Mies’ designs were lack of framework. However, he was really good to use modern materials. Besides, his style is simple, planar and geometric. He also good at to use the glass curtain wall to create the open space of a building, and concerned more about the incorporation of nature. Furthermore his custom designed furniture also very famous all over the world.

The Barcelona chair is one of the most famous furniture in his design, which reflects the same philosophical underpinnings that drove his architecture. The chair was Mies customized for the Barcelona House in 1929. In the 1930s, Mies worked briefly as the last director of the Bauhaus, adopting and developing their functionalist application of simple geometric forms in the design of useful objects. Therefore when he designed the Barcelona chair he also concerned with the use of space, and the chair forms being defined as much by the space around it as by the structure of the chair itself, and it employ a striking combination of sleek modernist steel frame and luxurious leather. The original frame had bolts but in 1950 it got its current look with the seamless metal frame. Furthermore, the original ivory pigskin was also replaced by black leather.

REFERENCE

Styleture, Mies van der Rohe – Pioneer of Modern Architecture, viewed 12 August 2011, http://www.styleture.com/2009/08/13/mies-van-der-rohe-pioneer-of-modern-architecture/.

Building Connections, Mies van der Rohe, viewed 12 August 2011, http://www.buildingconnections.co.uk/resources/4thdimension/mmasters_van_der_rohe.html.

Designboom 2000, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, viewed 14 August 2011, http://www.designboom.com/portrait/mies/bg.html.