Antoni Gaudí, one of the world's most famous architects from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, was also a daring designer of furniture, railings and other items of decoration for his houses. For the chairs for Casa Batlló, on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia, the architect designed a type of seat unknown before then, which aimed at rounded forms to fit the human form, foregoing upholstery and the superfluous ornamentation of the time and stripping the item bare. Gaudí was a forerunner of ergonomic design, breaking with academic repertories and foreshadowing industrial design, the same as contemporary architects such as Victor Horta, Mackintosh and Saarinen.

This work has been selected for the project 'Partage Plus – Digitising and Enabling Art Nouveau for Europeana'