Furniture for workers? For real?

In this week's lecture, still referring to "From Bauhaus To Our House", we discussed about Mies van der Rohe. He was the avant-garde modernist architect who had visions of high rise buildings erected up with a pure glass facade. This was considered radical at that time. Mies was also responsible for designing the world renown barcelona chair which I find quite ironic. This was one of the architects from Bauhaus who believed in designing for the non bourgeois. Up to this point, a "Knolls" barcelona chair is worth from 150,000 - 200,000 ish Thai Baht! How could the non bourgeois afford this? Anyone who can bear the expense of this chair would definitely be in the bourgeois class. A barcelona chair is expensive and also difficult to mass produce which contradicts his goal of creating for the non bourgeois. Owning a barcelona chair is like you're not buying a 'chair' but buying a piece of history -an icon of modern living.

The barcelona chair was actually designed for the king and queen of Spain who visited the Barcelona Pavillion. From the articles i've read, the barcelona chair is considered quite uncomfortable - not the type of chair one would sit and watch TV for hours with.

Although I disapprove of Mies designing their chair with an aim to mass produce and sell to the non bourgeois class, I do give him credit for his design. The chair, in my opinion, is like a Mac product. The chair is designed to be exactly what it is - its function is displayed. There is no ornament or fancy decorations within the design. Chairs now-a-days is in all sorts of shape and forms with miscellaneous things hanging out of it. Most would not only function as a seating place but also have extra functions such as arm rests, cup holders, or foot rests. In my opinion, I think in today's world, we lack this kind of simplicity. Maybe if we are able to balance Mies' view and what we need to accommodate a chair today, we might come up with a good design concept.