Detail View: The AMICA Library: Side chair

The German architect Peter Behrens designed this chair for a dining room displayed at the Berlin department store A. Wertheim as part of a modern interior design exhibition. With its bold, simple yet curvilinear lines, the chair embodies Jugendstil, the German equivalent of the French Art Nouveau style. A chair from the same suite is now in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

Behrens was trained as a painter before turning to architecture and design. Along with Richard Riemerschmid, Behrens helped establish the Munich Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk (United Workshops for Arts and Crafts) in 1897, which sold domestic objects designed by modern artists; he also served as director of several art schools. From 1922 to 1936, Behrens was artistic director for the Berlin electrical combine A.E.G. where he developed its corporate identity. He designed the logo for A.E.G. as well as the architecture of the company's factories and the furniture, kettles, fans and clocks. This was the first time that a corporation hired an artist to advise on all aspects of industrial design.