Sources of The Barcelona Chair

If you are in search of the licensed source of the Barcelona Chair, Knoll is the company that you are looking for. Their quality is flawless with absolutely no compromises, their reputation is legendary. Their price is .... startling.

There are however a tremendous number of other sources of this design. Calling themselves by many names (other than the Barcelona Chair), to avoid infringing Knoll's trade mark. Most commonly referred to as a Pavillion chair these reproductions vary in quality based on the manufacturers choice of materials and methods. Their prices range from $500 (you can expect some serious quality compromises here) to $2000+. Quality however is not consistently correlated with price. Superb reproductions exist at the low end, ($800 - $1000 and some surprisingly disappointing versions can be found at the higher end of this range - $2500.

These reproductions are made by manufacturers in a great many countries including: Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, China, Vietnam and others. Manuafacturers of course source materials for their chairs, from local suppliers as much as possible, (to cut down tansportation costs) and this can in some cases give their chairs some 'local' character. For example - Argeninian leathers are really quite beautiful. To the trained eye they are different from Italian leathers - deeper grained and fuller to the hand - but most people would not notice such delicate distinctions. One Brazilian manufacturer produces a Pavillion chair with a slightly wider steel bar in the X legs. Producing an effect that is more substantial, perhaps more masculine, but not in any way a compromise on the original design.

As tempting as it may be to discriminate between chairs based on where they are made, this is really not a useful criteria. Different Chinese manufacturers produce both the best and the worst of reproduction Barcelona Chairs available. Similarly, some Italian manufacturers produce chairs of delectable perfection, and others use a mix of good and seriously poor materials - suspiciously characterized as being for the 'export market'.