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Miniatures Garden Egg

Peter Ghyczy, 1968

The Garden Egg was originally intended to be a garden chair. At that time Peter Ghyczy was working for the synthetics manufacturer Elastogran/Reuter in Lemförde. As leader of the design department, his tasks included exploring suitable areas of application for what were then new and particularly promising synthetic materials. The most prominent and later legendary example of this work was the Garden Egg.

As the name of the chair implies, this is an eggshaped object with a flat underside and a folding top. When open, the top forms the backrest. Inside there are soft cushions for comfort. When closed, the weather-proof, rain-proof 'shell' ensures that the chair can be kept outside all year round.

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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.