This Timeless, Iconic Chair Is Getting an Update After Nearly 100 Years

You’ve seen the Barcelona chair whether you know it or not, offering elegant seating for guests in the lobby of an office or hotel, or staged among other mid-century treasures in trendy home design magazines. Its simplicity is deceiving: Two tufted cushions are perched to form a relaxed angle atop a swooping, shiny x-shaped metal frame. The chair and its countless imitations have become so ubiquitous it seems almost impossible it ever had to be invented, like it simply came into being sometime in the 1960s. But this icon of Modernist design and beloved product of the movement’s most impactful figures, is just a few years shy of celebrating its 100th birthday.

The Barcelona chair was designed in 1929 by German designer, architect, and former director of the heralded and forward-thinking Bauhaus school Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It got its name from the location where it was first displayed, the German pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition that same year, where a pair of prototypes were intended as de facto thrones for the king and queen of Spain (apparently, they never actually sat in them). That original Barcelona chair, made from chrome-plated steel and white pigskin, has endured, living up to the Bauhaus ethos that everyday objects can be beautiful and exceptional, as well as the Modernist tenets of minimalism and industrial materials.

But while the chair has traditionally only been available from officially-licensed producer Knoll in animal hide and chrome finishes, the furniture maker is finally giving this timeless design an update. The 2025 collection of Barcelona furnishings — which also features a footstool and couch/daybed — will, for the first time, be available in fabrics like twill, velvet and linen, CNN reports. These additional textile options will also expand the color lineup to seven. The metal frame will be available in chrome, stainless steel, and, now, matte black.

Some traditionalists and students of Mies’ work might balk at the idea of changing Barcelona chair’s textures, and for good reason. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1937, Mies van der Rohe landed in Chicago, making his mark on that city’s skyline including the Chicago Federal Center, as well as the Seagram Building in midtown Manhattan and the iconic glass-walled Farnsworth House (now a museum) in rural Illinois. The designer was notorious for his commitment to minimalism, not only in his furnishings, but in his architectural designs which were noted for their generous use of glass and steel beams painted in black graphite, kickstarting another ubiquitous design for practically every modern-day skyscraper.

Sometimes, as they say, “less is more.” The “they” in this case, also happens to be Mies, who coined that maxim’s use in design. But, according to CNN, scholars of Mies, who died in 1969, say there’s evidence he wouldn’t have been opposed to variations on his lauded lounge chair. And considering authentic Barcelona chair prices start in the thousands of dollars, a few more customization options would seem warranted. After all, you’re investing in a statement piece that, if history is any indication, people will admire for another hundred years.