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The cantilever
No back legs
The seat is held from the front, like a balcony. Where you expect two legs there is nothing, and that absence is the whole idea of the chair.
Mies van der Rohe, 1927
- Design
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- Year
- 1927
- Place
- Weissenhof, Stuttgart
- Material
- Tubular steel and cane
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Chapter I. Origin
Chapter II. Anatomy
Chapter III. Exploded view
Line and weave
The tube draws the chair and the weave completes it. Apart, you can see that the structure does not need the seat to exist: it is a drawing in the air.
A
Line
Continuous tubular steel
B
Weave
Woven cane
Chapter IV. Matter and light
Try it
The same structure changes character with its materials and the light in the room.
Chapter V. Context
1926
Stam's idea
Mart Stam shows his sketch of a chair with no back legs in Stuttgart.
1927
Weissenhof
The Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart presents the MR10 in the model houses of modern living.
1929
The Barcelona Pavilion
Mies and Lilly Reich take steel to a monumental scale at the International Exposition.
1930
Mies leads the Bauhaus
He becomes director of the school in Dessau.
1930s
The cantilever dispute
German courts recognise Mart Stam as the author of the principle of the chair with no back legs.
1933
The Bauhaus closes
The school dissolves under pressure from the Nazi regime.
1938
Chicago
Mies emigrates to the United States, where he transforms postwar architecture.
Chapter VI. Closing
It took the legs away from the chair and nobody ever missed them.
Objects of the Century, MR10
000
Preparing the room