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Rare Pair of MR20 Armchairs, model by L. Mies Van Der Rohe, Germany, Circa 1970

About the Item

A pair of soft-lined armchairs made of chromed steel tubes forming the seat, armrests and legs in one piece, with patinated red leather. The MR20 armchair represents some of the earliest steel furniture designs by Mies van der Rohe. The chromed metal choice was inspired by fellow Bauhaus master Marcel Breuer, while the forms are influenced by 19th century iron rocking chairs. The origins of the bent-steel cantilevered armchair are somewhat mysterious, but generally three names come up in the discussion. Marcel Breuer is widely credited with pioneering the exploration of the material, Mart Stam seems to be the first to conceive a “chair without back legs”, and Mies van der Rohe is remembered as the one who made it beautiful. It is believed that Mart Stam described his idea—a continuous loop of steel (he used a thinner gauge gas pipe in the earliest versions) with a cantilevered seat—at a meeting of the Werkbund in 1926. In attendance were Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe, both of whom were inspired to design cantilever chairs of their own in the coming months. Mies replaced the right angles on the front legs with a graceful curve which had the advantage of increasing flexibility while preventing material wear. Mies first showed the MR 10 and MR20 at the Stuttgart Weissenhof Estate — a seminal Werkbund exhibition, which first brought modernist works to the public, with buildings designed by Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and others. Over the next five years, Mies would develop an entire series of tubular steel designs now presented by Knoll as the MR Collection. Biography : Mies Van Der Rohe was a German architect and designer born in Aachen in 1886, who began to work in 1906 in Bruno Paul's studio while studying at the School of Applied Arts and the Berlin School of Fine Arts. After finishing his studies, he joined architect Berhens' studio in 1908, where he introduced technical and stylistic innovations and met Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus. Thnaks on this experience, he founded his own architectural practice in 1912. He took on a number of major projects, such as the German Pavilion at the 1929 Universal Exhibition in Barcelona and the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, while at the same time turning his attention to furniture design. To fulfill these commissions, he teamed up with interior designer Lilly Reich, with whom he designed the MR20 chair for the “die Wohnung” exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927, and the Barcelona chair for the Exposition in 1929. Seeking to go beyond the established model, he became the director of the Bauhaus School of Art in Dassau from 1930 to 1933, but his professional future was soon compromised, so in 1938, he decided to immigrate to the United States, devoting himself fully to architecture.

Dimensions:

Height: 33.47 in (85 cm)Width: 21.66 in (55 cm)Depth: 30.71 in (78 cm)

Style:

Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Chrome,Leather,Metal,Plated

Place of Origin:

Germany

Period:

1970-1979

Date of Manufacture:

1970