kursii

Audio with Theyab's pronunciation

Today we're going to talk about chairs, or karaasii.

A little chair-talk is often very mufiid. How might you say, for instance,
"pull up a kursii" or "is this kursii free" in Kuwaiti Arabic?*

After all, the chair is the very threshold to a social life.

It's no surprise then, that a kursii was named after Barcelona, possibly
one of Europe's most sociable mudin. Believe it or not, al-mudayl of the
Barcelona Chair is over 80 years old:

It was designed in 1929 to show off the levels of creativity and innovation
taking place in Barcelona at the time. The humble designer of the Barcelona Chair
also happened to be one of the founders of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe,
who probably spoke about as much Catalan as I do, and even less Spanish.

Mies van der Rohe based al-mudayl of the kursii on the rather debonair karaasii
of the Roman Emperors:

Despite the glacial perfection of its shakl, the Barcelona Chair is something that
even design gurus would never dream of putting in their home. Most will be found
gracing the lobbies of corporate empires in London or New York, and for better
or worse, they sort of say: "stay back - and simply gaze at me."

Many people who visit Barcelona would probably struggle to correlate this
plush, meticulously polished number with a city that is wild, fun, and to put it
mildly, a little rough around the edges.

That is, until you began to see the playfulness in its arched legs.
Or the stand-back-look-at-me austerity of Barcelona's other landmarks:

كرسي	kursii	Chair
كرسيين	kursiiayn	Two chairs
كراسي	karaasii	Chairs (three - ten)
مدينه	madiinah	City
مدينتين	madiintayn	Two cities
مدن	mudin	Cities (three - ten)
المديل	al-mudayl	The design
شكل	shakl	The shape

*
"pull up a chair" - isHab-l-ik kursii (>m), siHbii-l-ich (>f)
"is this chair free" - al-kursii faaDHii?