Miniatures Plywood Elephant

Description

The Plywood Elephant holds a prominent place among the plywood pieces designed by the Eameses. In the early 1940s Charles and Ray Eames successfully developed an innovative method for moulding plywood into three-dimensional shapes, which they used to produce a wide range of furniture and sculptural objects. Among the early plywood designs, the Elephant is one of the most difficult to produce. Tight angles and compound curves require a sophisticated mastery of plywood technology.

Designed at the same time as their children's furniture, the Plywood Elephant can also be seen as a playful counterpart to the leg splints developed by the Eameses for military applications – which were the very first mass-produced objects made of three dimensionally moulded plywood.

Requiring complex fabrication methods, the Plywood Elephant never went into production. Only two prototypes were made, both of which were displayed at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1945-46. Today only one known model remains in the possession of the Eames Family. In 2007 Vitra produced the first commercial production of the legendary Eames Plywood Elephant as a limited Collector's Edition.

Details

Made in: Germany 

Scale: 1:6, 130 x 69 x 69 mm

Material: Three-dimensionally moulded plywood, natural maple, nickle plated screw

Designer 

Charles & Ray Eames, 1945

Charles Ormand Eames Jr., a nearly-licensed architect born in St. Louis in 1907, and Bearnice Alexandra “Ray” Kaiser, an abstract painter born in Sacramento in 1912, are cemented into the canon of 20th-century design. Since uniting in 1940, these partners in life and work have been internationally recognized at the forefront of the design, architecture, filmmaking, and furniture communities.

Brand

Vitra is much more than a brand but rather a staple of design. Established in 1950 in Birsfelden, Switzerland, the brand has left its mark on design history through its transcending path. Starting as a furniture producer, it paved its way to manufacturing and ultimately became the powerhouse design institution we see today.