Designer: Alvar Aalto, 1932
Manufacturer: Vitra

In his designs, Alvar Aalto combined Scandinavian craft traditions and his own affinity to nature with the functional ideas of the Bauhaus. This led to an exchange of ideas with Marcel Breuer, which later influenced the work of both men.

Armchair No. 42 was presented for the first time at an exhibition held in conjunction with the Nordic Building Forum in 1932. With a simple three-part construction, the design ensures a high degree of comfort: the cantilever base flexes in response to the user’s weight and the plywood seat shell follows the contours of the body. In recognition of its pleasant tactile qualities and favourable insulating properties, Aalto executed the chair in natural birchwood with a black or white lacquer finish for the seat shell.

• Scale: 1:6, 122 x 120 x 101 mm
• Armrests: laminated birch, natural stain
• Seat/backrest: birch plywood, black lacquer finish
• Dimensions: H 4¾" x W 4" x D 4¾"

MINIATURES COLLECTION

The collection of the Vitra Design Museum ranks among the most important holdings of furniture design worldwide. It contains some 7000 pieces of furniture, over 1000 lighting objects, and numerous archives, as well as the estates of such designers as Charles and Ray Eames, Verner Panton, and Alexander Girard.

Although the main museum building by Frank Gehry from 1989 was originally conceived to house the collection, the museum now utilises the space to stage major temporary exhibitions. To date, the museum’s collection has never been on permanent display.

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.

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