Black Leather Flat Bar Brno Chairs by Mies Van Der Rohe & Lilly Reich by Gordon

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Black Leather Flat Bar Brno Chairs by Mies Van Der Rohe & Lilly Reich by Gordon

About the Item

Handsome pair of black leather and chrome flat bar Brno chairs designed by Mies Van Der Rohe and Lilly Reich produced by Gordon International. One is in wonderful vintage condition. The other is in almost wonderful condition. The leather on both is perfect and the chrome on one is as well. But, the chrome on the other has some pitting on the flat part of the legs. We have cleaned it with lemon juice and 000 steel wool, circa 1980s-1990s. Please see photos The Brno MR50 cantilever chair is one of my very favorite iconic chairs. And these two, which are circa late 20th century, are outstanding and in my favorite color….black. The “official” holder of the license to produce the Brno chair is Knoll; however, many claim the design is in the public domain and able to be produced by anyone. And, they do. One of the best companies making them and, in my opinion, closest in quality to Knoll, is the maker of this pair, Gordon International. The chair was designed in 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with much assistance, albeit unrewarded in her lifetime, from Lilly Reich for the renowned Tugendhat House in Brno, Czech Republic. The form is influenced by and roughly based on the earlier cantilevered chair designs by Marcel Breuer and Mart Stam. Interestingly, although there were 24 tubular Brno chairs in the Tugendhat House, there was only one flat bar example which was in the master bedroom. Due to this fact the flat bar chair was not put into mass production until after 1958 when Phillip Johnson requested of Knoll to produce them for his design of the Four Seasons restaurant. The original design was tweaked somewhat, in particular adding padding to the seat and back for more comfort, with approval from Mies. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies on March 27, 1886 in Germany. He was commonly referred to as Mies. He changed his name to reflect a higher societal standing. He is considered one of the pioneers of modernist design in both architecture and furnishings. Early in his career he worked in his father’s stone carving shop and several design firms. Then, moving to Berlin, he worked alongside Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. He was director of the famed Bauhaus, an influential school of modern design. But in 1932 fled Germany and the Nazi regime, along with their opposition to modernism, by moving to the United States and Chicago specifically where he headed the architecture school at the Armour Institute of Technology now the Illinois Institute of Technology. Some of his famed architectural designs are the Barcelona Pavilion, 1929; Villa Tugendhat, 1930; Crown Hall on the IIT campus; IBM Plaza, Chicago; 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago; the Farnsworth House; and many more. He is credited with the design of the Barcelona chair and table, the Brno Chair, and the Tugendhat chair. Mies died after a successful career on August 17, 1969. Lilly Reich was born in Berlin in 1885. In 1908 using her expertise in embroidery she went to work for the Wiener Werkstatte, a visual arts production company of designers, artists, and architects, of the famed designer, Josef Hoffmann. By 1911 she returned to Berlin and began to design furniture and clothing and work as a window decorator. That was the beginning of a full and successful career which included work at the Deutscher Werkbund, a group similar to the Wiener Werkstatte; designing a working-class flat in the Berlin Gewerkschaftshaus; becoming the first woman elected to the governing board of the Deutscher Werkbund; and working at the Messeamt in Frankfurt organizing and designing trade fairs. It was at the latter where she met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the two began a collaboration on many projects together including the Barcelona Pavilion and the Tugendhat House along with their furnishings. Lilly was very talented but, according to the times because of being a woman, unrecognized in her accomplishments during her lifetime. She had a personal relationship with Mies but did not immigrate to the United States staying in Germany. Consequently, after the bombing of her studio in 1943, she was sent to a forced labor organization where she remained until 1945. She was released at the end of the war and began working on the revival of the Deutsche Werkbund but died in 1950, due to complications of her internment, before she saw its re-establishment. Gordon International, Freehold, New Jersey was established in 1967 and provides solutions for interiors specifiers. They now have 20 sales teams across North American and a showroom presence in most major cities. They have a production facility of upholstery, assembly, and manufacturing output with an expansive inventory. Their primary product design now coming out of Italy with their established relationships with Italy’s most successful design teams but still producing design classics. They provide furnishings for both contract and residential needs. If you are looking for an iconic and Classic pair of chairs…….look no further. Make these yours. Measures: Chairs: • Height – 32 inches • Width – 22.5 inches • Depth – 21.5 inches • Arm height – 26.25 inches • Seat height – 17.25 inches • Inside seat width – 14.5 inches • Inside seat depth – 17.5 inches • Inside back height – 14.5 inches • Weight – 40.2 pounds each Crated size: • Height – 60 inches • Width – 28 inches • Depth – 27 inches • Weight – 220 pounds.

Creator:
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Designer),Gordon International (Maker),Lilly Reich (Designer)
Design:
Brno Chair - Flat Bar - 255Brno Series
Dimensions:
Height: 32 in (81.28 cm)Width: 22.5 in (57.15 cm)Depth: 21.5 in (54.61 cm)Seat Height: 17.25 in (43.82 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 2
Style:
Bauhaus (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Chrome,Leather
Period:
20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1980s-1990s
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses. One is in wonderful vintage condition. The other is in almost wonderful condition. The leather on both is perfect and the chrome on one is as well. But, the chrome on the other has some pitting on the flat part of the legs. We have cleaned it with le.
Seller Location:
Topeka, KS
Reference Number:
Seller: EVA-SEA-1991stDibs: LU1873314361612

Shop All Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Architect, furniture designer and educator, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a central figure in the advancement and promotion of modernist design and architectural theory and practice. Like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, he was a hugely influential presence in the field, who shaped the course of 20th-century architecture both through his buildings and his teaching of rationalist design principles.

Born in the medieval German city of Aachen, Mies found an interest in architecture as a boy while working for his father, a master stonemason. He had no formal education as an architect, but learned his skills as an apprentice to the designer Bruno Paul, and as a staffer in the office the proto-modernist architect and designer Peter Behrens. Following World War I, Mies rose to prominence in his field amid the liberal atmosphere of the Weimar Republic. His reputation was secured by his work on the German Pavilion at the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona (commonly referred to as the Barcelona Pavilion) — which Mies codesigned with Lilly Reich, his creative and romantic partner — a radically simple, poetic, open-plan building pared down to its architectural essentials. Mies would go on to direct the Bauhaus from 1930 until 1933, when Nazi-government interference forced the closure of the progressive art and design school. Later that decade, he made his way to Chicago, where he remained for the rest of his career as a practicing architect and a dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Mies’s famed dictum “less is more” grew from his belief that architecture both guides and expresses the spirit of the times, and he envisioned the 20th century as open-minded, logical, transparent and liberated by technology. His best-known buildings — residences such as the Villa Tugendhat in Czechoslovakia and the Farnsworth House in rural Illinois; skyscrapers like the 860–880 Lake Shore Drive apartment towers in Chicago and the Seagram Building in New York — reflect that philosophy. As do the most famous furniture designs authored by him or codesigned with Reich.

Pieces designed by Mies and Reich such as the Barcelona chair (the authorized version is produced by Knoll today), stools and daybed, or the cantilevered Brno chairs, deliver a maximum of comfort and support from a minimum of materials: their “lavishness” derives from the precision with which they are engineered and constructed. For the collector, the allure of Mies’s furniture is at once practical and idealistic. Useful and functional, his works embody the highest aspirations of modernism.

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