Henry van de Velde, who ranks among the most important Jugendstil designers, made this dining-room chair for his first home, Bloemenwerf, which he designed and erected in Uccle near Brussels in 1896. The interior design for Bloemenwerf gave him the opportunity to design a "Gesamtkunstwerk". The clear lines of the Bloemenwerf chair lend an architectural, almost engineered quality to the model. In particular, the diagonal supports at the front legs are reminiscent of bridging or roof structures. At the same time, the gentle curves of the square timber as well as the rounded edge of the seating surface also take on biomorphic qualities. Owing to the greatly reduced construction, a light but also functional chair was created, clearly embodying the van de Velde credo: ‘A line is a force’.
Van de Velde later took the Bloemenwerf furniture with him to his Weimar home, whose dining room included a dozen of the chairs. The model (which was one of his first furniture designs) was produced until the turn of the twentieth century and exhibited and covered in German and French publications. In contrast to many of his unique furniture designs, it was produced, displayed, and sold in multiples.
Text: Tilo Richter
