Pair of chairs for headquarters BNC ca. 1910, probably Joan Busquets

Probably JOAN BUSQUETS I JANÉ (Barcelona, 1874 - 1949)
Pair of chairs for BNC headquarters, ca. 1910.
Noble wood, probably mahogany or tropical wood; seat woven in vegetable fiber.
Historical provenance and documentary references: part of the furniture commissioned by ENRIC PRAT DE LA RIBA for the first headquarters of the BIBLIOTECA DE CATALUNYA at the Palau de la Generalitat. Attached are archive photographs showing examples of this model in its original location.
One copy was included in the exhibition dedicated to Josep Puig i Cadafalch, curated by Dr. Mireia Freixa Serra at the Museu d'Història de Catalunya in 2018.
Conservation: good general condition. Solid structures, with superficial wear, marks of use and tone variations typical of its age. Woven seats possibly restored or with later interventions.
Measurements: 60 x 47 x 70 cm.

Exceptional pair of armchairs made in Catalonia around 1910, probably in the workshop of Joan Busquets, a key figure in the evolution of Catalan furniture between Modernisme, Noucentisme and the first formulations of functional modernity.

The pieces present a structure of great formal purity, with a continuous semicircular backrest in curved wood, also conceived as an armrest, slightly inclined uprights and a seat woven in vegetable fiber. The absence of ornamentation, the constructive clarity and the sobriety of the set place them in a particularly advanced moment of the Catalan design of the early twentieth century, away from the dominant modernist decorative language.

The model is linked to the furniture commissioned by Enric Prat de la Riba for the first headquarters of the Biblioteca de Catalunya at the Palau de la Generalitat, as part of a major institutional and cultural project. It is not, therefore, domestic furniture, but pieces conceived for a public space of intellectual and political representation. Their design reveals a look towards northern European library models, based on functionality, ergonomics and formal purification.

Because of their early modernity, these chairs can be read as a proto-rationalist manifestation prior to the Catalan rationalism of the 1930s, anticipating solutions that would later appear in the GATCPAC environment and, especially, in Josep Torres Clavé's 1936 armchair, both for its structural clarity and its use of humble materials.

Its relevance is reinforced by the existence of documentary photographs that place specimens of this model in its original location, as well as by the inclusion of a specimen in the exhibition dedicated to Josep Puig i Cadafalch, curated by Dr. Mireia Freixa Serra at the Museu d'Història de Catalunya in 2018.

This is a model of great rarity, not serialized and linked to a specific institutional commission. Its importance lies not only in its formal quality, but also in its historical value, documenting the transition between modernist-noucentista furniture and a modern conception of design in Catalonia.