Barcelona Chair
The Barcelona chair and a matching stool (or ottoman) were designed in 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the German Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona Exposition in Spain. A couch was designed in 1930 to accompany the collection. A coffee table was also created. The items are still produced by Knoll, which acquired the exclusive manufacturing and sales rights from the designer in 1953. Mies van der Rohe based his design on the curule chair, which symbolized power in the ancient world (it had an X-form or scissors-shaped frame). The Barcelona chair has endured as a 20th-century icon and an example of the perfectionist ideals of the Bauhaus design movement in the Europe of the 1920s and 1930s.