Perfectly proportioned and finished, the Barcelona Chair and Barcelona Ottomann exuded an air of elegance and authority.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began his career in architecture in Berlin, working as an architect first in the studio of Bruno Paul and then, like Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, Peter Behrens.

In the mid-1920's, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began to design furniture, pieces that he conceived and created for particular interiors. Cantilevered chair with a tubular steel frame. Chromed flat steel frame.

Created for the German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition, the Pavilion chair (Barcelona Chair and Barcelona Ottomann) was intended as a modern throne; a thick cushion upholstered in luxurious leather and set upon a curved metal frame in the shape of an X inspired by classical design furniture.

In 1938, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe emigrated from Europe and moved to Chicago. Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe was devoted to promoting the Modernist style of architecture in the U.S.

Equally significant, if smaller in scale, is Mies' daring design furniture, pieces that exhibit an unerring sense of proportion, as well as minimalist forms and exquisitely refined details.

In fact, his Barcelona Chair and Barcelona Ottomann have been called architecture in miniature exercises in structure and materials that achieve an extraordinary visual harmony as autonomous pieces or in relation to the interiors for which they were originally designed.