B4U Furniture Design History

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Mies van der Rohe was originally from an architectural background, who then started designing furniture's along the path of his career. One of his furniture is the Barcelona Chair which he designed during the building of one of his famous buildings, the German pavilion. The Barcelona chair is renowned for its light weight look in a period where chairs looked heavy and bulky. This is possible with the discovery of metal elasticity which allows the bending of tubular steel and also in an era where people are concentrating on mass producing furniture's. His work also shows a beginning of a simpler and more mordenized style of designing and manufacturing furniture.




Le Corbusier















There is a quote from someone saying that Le Corbusier's work is influenced by people and their surroundings. We can see that from the way he conducts his projects, whether it is furniture or architecture. Here I'm going to look in more detail in the LC4 chaise lounge chair. To me, this chair became popular at that time because of the chair's comfort and it's functionality. From a book that I read, I can see he took into consideration the ergonomic and anthropometrics of his users, which is something new at that time. The use of steelin this design, allows for a smoother curve for the reclining movement. The idea was derived from how soldiers used to rest lying down with their feet up againts a tree, with a knapsack under their heads, turns out to be medically recomended position and is a ver comfortable one.


Reference:

- Fischer, V 1997, The LC4 Chaise Lounge by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand
- Glaeser, L 1977, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: Furniture and Furniture Drawings from the Design Vollection and the Mies van der Rohe Archive