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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair decorates every corporate lobby.

The frame of the Barcelona chair, for example, originally nine steel components bolted together, was designed as a seamless piece of stainless steel, and cowhide instead of pigskin was used for seat and back coverings.

The Barcelona chair, the Cape Cod belt and six more timeless items with a sense of place—no updates required.

Johnson had family money, and hired Mies van der Rohe to kit out his apartment with a rosewood chest, a spare tea table, and a camel-colored Barcelona chair; Barr, who had to work for a living, ordered entirely passable knockoffs from Ypsilanti, Mich. This show is too small for its subject, but if you’re into Modernist revivals, you’ll do better here than at the ghastly new restaurant in Johnson’s old Four Seasons.

Johnson, who had family money, hired Mies and his wife, Lilly Reich, a designer and architect, to strip down his apartment, and to kit it out with a rosewood chest, a spare tea table, and a camel-colored Barcelona chair.