There can scarcely be anybody in the Western world who doesn’t recognise Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair. It is one of the most photographed and copied of all the early to mid-twentieth century designs.

Designed for the German pavilion at the great 1929 Barcelona exhibition, it was produced in white (for decorative effect) for the king and queen of Spain to sit on briefly while they signed the guest book at the opening ceremony – a detail that its critics say accounts for its lack of comfort.

Nevertheless, there can hardly be a chair that is a more potent statement of its owner’s Modernist aspirations – which is why it is a perennial in the offices of architects. The American writer Tom Wolfe declared, “When you saw the holy object on the sisal rug, you knew you were in a household where a fledgling architect and his young wife had sacrificed everything to bring the symbol of the godly mission into their home.”

NOTES Price You can buy a copy for as little as £249, but originals are instantly recognisable – Berliner Metallgewerbe/Joseph Müller were its first producers and they used a ‘lap-joint’ on the frame. If you can find an original, you are likely to pay in the region of £140,000 for it. Today, the chairs are made by Knoll International, under licence but in the same materials, and are most sought after in chocolate brown. Prices start at £3,669 from www.twentytwentyone.co.uk.

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