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Mies van der Rohe Chair

Authors

RISD Museum
Dietrich Neumann, Brown UniversityFollow

Files

Description

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe succeeded Walter Gropius as director of the Bauhaus school in 1930, after Mies had become a pioneer of Modernist metal furniture. The Bauhaus became the seat of the Modernist movement through its efforts to reconcile principles of design with the latest materials in order to mass-produce objects that were handsome, inexpensive, and easy to care for. This MR model chair, designed in 1927, is one of the 20th century’s most influential creations. The bent-steel frame was made to look like one continuous loop of metal tubing, elegantly referring to its manufacture. While Mies van der Rohe was not the first to make a cantilevered chair—meaning one without back legs—he is known for exploiting the qualities of bent metal that give a springy comfort. By mixing woven cane with metal tubing, his design takes on a complexity in which the texture of natural material contrasts markedly with the machined steel frame. 1927

Publication Date

11-25-2014

Publisher

RISD Museum

City

Providence, Rhode Island

Keywords

Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Bauhaus; chair; metal; cantilevered

Disciplines

Industrial and Product Design

Recommended Citation

RISD Museum and Neumann, Dietrich, "Mies van der Rohe Chair" (2014). Channel. 30.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdmuseum_channel/30