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Miniatures Stuhl W1

Mart Stam, 1926

Dutch designer Mart Stam produced the first prototypes for a cantilevered chair in 1926, using sawed-off gas pipes which he linked with elbow butting. The base frame, legs, seat and back-rest were created by a continuous loop bent at right angles.
In 1927 Stam had his design produced by the L. & C. Arnold company, which also featured it in their sales program for a year. Unlike the prototype, the Arnold chair was made from a single piece of tubular steel with a diameter of just 20 mm, and with walls 2 mm thick. The bends in the tube had to be reinforced with solid iron rods, and thus lacked any springiness. The chair was painted black or grey, and, with its covering of rubber or coarse fabric, had a rather unassuming appearance.

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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.