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A One-Piece Plywood Chair from 1934

Pre-Eames bentwood furniture

By Rain Noe - August 27, 2023

in Furniture Design

It's impressive enough that this chair is made from a single piece of plywood. It's outright astonishing to learn it was designed and made in the 1930s. According to the UK's Victoria & Albert Museum:

"Designed in 1934 by Gerald Summers and manufactured by his London company, The Makers of Simple Furniture, the chair is made from a plywood sheet consisting of 13 layers of cross-grained veneer."

"The sheet was first cut with four straight lines, which outlined the position and width of the arms and back legs. While the glue between the plys was still wet, the sheet was then pressed in a wooden mould for eight hours. The mould articulated the curve of the chair's legs and arms, leaving only the front legs to be cut out after the moulding process was finished."

"Summers was one of a group of European designers working in the early 1930s to push the formal and structural limits of new furniture materials such as plywood."

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Ryan Cee

a year ago

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It pales in comparison to the other horrors of WW2, but the art and design that came out of the 1930's and how forward looking so much of it was always makes me sad that so much creativity was snuffed out by a second half decade of hell on Earth.

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Dee An

a year ago

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Why are you comparing this chair to Eames' chair? This chair only requires the plywood to be bent in one plane; what made Eames' work important is that he bent the ply into saddle like shapes.

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- Joseph Stirt
  
  Dee An
  
  a year ago
  
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  Dee An, if you look carefully at Eames' iconic chair and ottoman you will see each piece of plywood is bent in one plane, just like Summers' chair. One might argue that Summers' subsequent manipulation of his single piece of plywood is more sophisticated than what Eames did with each individual piece of his chair.
  
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