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Miniatures Laminated Chair

Grete Jalk, 1963

Designed by Grete Jalk (1920-2006) in 1963, the Laminated Chair is regarded today as the Danish designer's best-known work. The chair, for which Jalk also created a companion side table, was realised in collaboration with the cabinetmaker Poul Jeppesen. Although it won first prize in a competition organised by the British newspaper Daily Mail during the year of its inception, the chair never went into industrial production.

Probably only a few pieces from the original series of approximately 300 still exist today. This explains the extremely high prices that have been paid for this model at international auctions in recent years. The expressive sculptural form of the chair, composed of two similarly shaped pieces of moulded plywood, marks a late highlight in the engagement of prominent designers with this material, which had commenced in the 1930s.

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Miniatures Collection

For over two decades, the Vitra Design Museum has been making miniature replicas of milestones in furniture design from its collection. The Miniatures Collection encapsulates the entire history of industrial furniture design – moving from Historicism and Art Nouveau to the Bauhaus and New Objectivity, from Radical Design and Postmodernism all the way up to the present day. Exactly one sixth the size of the historical originals, the chairs are all true to scale and precisely recreate the smallest details of construction, material and colour. The high standard of authenticity even extends to the natural grain of the wood, the reproduction of screws and the elaborate handicraft techniques involved. This has made the miniatures into popular collector's items as well as ideal illustrative material for universities, design schools and architects.