The Bauhaus believed a room should be organized by clean, functional lines — tubular steel, white walls, nothing decorative for its own sake. Copenhagen answered with the other half of the mid-century conversation: sculpted wood, stitched leather, structure you can run a hand along. Put both in one gallery-white apartment and you get this room: Finn Juhl's Chieftain chair holding the floor, a tubular chrome cantilever table drawn beside it like a sketch, and a tower of washi paper supplying the light. White walls are not the absence of a scheme here; they are the gallery that lets two schools of design argue politely.
Look 1 — The Gallery Arrangement
The wide view reads like a hanging plan: two Chieftain chairs angled toward each other, the chrome table exactly between them, one oversized equestrian photograph, and a sculptural white coffee table drifting on a pale looped rug. Every object gets air around it — the Bauhaus habit of treating floor space as seriously as furniture. The chairs' dark leather shields are the only deep tone in the room, which is precisely why the composition works: in an all-white apartment, one repeated dark shape does the organizing that a wall color would do elsewhere.
- Walls: a bright gallery white with no yellow in it (Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace OC-65, or Farrow & Ball All White No. 2005) — paint walls, trim and ceiling the same color so the art and chairs do the talking.
- Rug: one pale looped-wool island large enough to hold both chairs completely; furniture half-on, half-off a rug is visual clutter the room can't afford.
- Art: a single oversized framed photograph beats a gallery wall here — one statement per surface is the rule.
- Shop it: the Finn Juhl Chieftain Chair Model 435 in top-grain leather ($1,513.52) · the Bauhaus C-shaped side table ($198.89).
Look 2 — The Vertical Gallery
Turn the camera upright and the room shows its second act: a gently vaulted ceiling, a wall-hung cabinet floating clear of the floor, and a column of stacked, offset washi-paper shades glowing in the corner like a paper sculpture. This is how a Bauhaus-minded apartment gets its warmth — not from color, but from one handmade light source played against machine-made lines. The Chieftain's tilted back and paddle armrests, drawn in profile against all that white, earn their keep from every angle.
- The light tower: a stacked washi column turns lighting into the room's sculpture. The tower photographed here isn't in our collection — the closest statements we stock are the faceted Akari UF4-L8 washi column ($498.89) and the softer Akari 14A washi floor lamp ($389.99).
- Storage: hang the cabinet — keeping storage off the floor is the small-apartment Bauhaus move, and the shadow gap underneath makes the room read larger.
- Ceiling: if you have a vault, an arch or a beam, paint it the wall white and leave it alone; the chair's dark silhouette does more against a quiet ceiling.
- Shop it: the Chieftain Chair Model 435.
The Bauhaus Move: One Chrome Line
The cantilever side table is the smallest possible dose of Bauhaus, and in an apartment it is usually the right one. Tubular steel carries no visual weight — the table is effectively a drawn line standing in air — so it can sit between two substantial lounge chairs without crowding them. Its open base slides over rug edges and under seat frames, it needs no fourth leg to argue with, and it mirrors whatever the room does around it. One chrome gesture, and the wood-and-leather Chieftain suddenly reads as the deliberate counterpoint it was always meant to be: the Bauhaus put structure on display in steel; Finn Juhl did the same thing in walnut and leather, two decades of craft later.
A Note on the Frame
The chairs photographed here wear a light natural-oak finish. The Chieftain 435 edition we stock ships with a walnut-stained frame — identical lines, one shade deeper and warmer. In a bright white room like this one, the walnut version actually draws a sharper silhouette; if you're styling against darker walls or wood floors, the deeper frame keeps its definition there too. Upholstery is the same black top-grain leather you see in these shots.
Take all five rooms with you: this scheme and its four siblings are collected in the Finn Juhl Chieftain Chair Styling Guide — a 10-page designer-style PDF with every design board, paint reference and sizing rule from this series, a complete procurement list, and a working 15% code for the Chieftain collection inside.
Shop the Look
- Finn Juhl Chieftain Chair Model 435 — Top-Grain Leather Lounge Chair · $1,513.52
- Bauhaus C-Shaped Side Table · $198.89
- Akari UF4-L8 Washi Paper Floor Lamp — the sculptural column for the corner · $498.89
- Akari 14A Washi Paper Floor Lamp — the softer paper glow · $389.99
Everything ships free in the US with 30-day returns. For the same Bauhaus thinking carried through dining room and bedroom, see Bauhaus Design Style, Room by Room — and for this same chair gone soft and rural, the limewashed chapter is in One Chair Is Enough.
— BreuerHome Editorial
