Design: 1972Production: 1972Manufacturer: Easy Edges, Inc., New YorkSize: 85 x 42.5 x 60; seat height 45.5 cmsMaterial: corrugated cardboard, fiberboard,round timberCardboard furniture came on the scene during the sixties as a cheap and light alternative to traditional furniture. At that time attempts were made to reinforce the support of the single-layer cardboard offered by using folds, tabs, slots, and other devices. Nevertheless, cardboard was not able to compete against plastic, which was just as light. Frank O. Gehry discovered a process that ensured cardboard furniture-making a new burst of popularity. “One day I saw a pile of corrugated cardboard outside of my office – the material which I prefer for building architecture models – and I began to play with it, to glue it together and to cut it into shapes with a hand saw and a pocket knife.”1 It was thus possible to transform massive blocks of cardboard into cardboard sculptures. Gehry named this material Edge Board: it consisted of glued layers of corrugated cardboard running in alternating directions, and in 1972 he introduced a series of cardboard furniture under the name “Easy Edges.”
The “Easy Edges” were extraordinarily sturdy, and due to their surface quality, had a noise-reducing effect in a room. The design theorist Victor Papanek, one of the first to address the ecological responsibility of designers, praised Edge Board as a useful application of a packing material to furniture. The “Easy Edges” were a great success and brought Gehry overnight fame as a furniture designer, but at the same time he was into a role he did not like. Even sales prices were no longer consistent with Gehry’s basic idea of offering furniture to suit anyone’s pocketbook. “ I started to feel threatened. I closed myself off for weeks at a time in a room to rethink my life. I decided that I was an architect, not a furniture designer … and I simply stopped doing it.”2 Gehry made an international breakthrough as an architect in the late seventies, among other things with the design of his private residence in Santa Monica, California, in 1978. Since 1986 Vitra AG has reproduced four models of his “Easy Edges.”
[1] Frank O. Gehry, quoted in Marilyn Hoffmann, “Liberated Design,” The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, April 19, 1972.[2] Frank O.Gehry, quoted in Frank Gehry and his Architecture, exhibitioncatalogue (Walker Art Center, 1989), 64Designer:Frank Gehry Cardboard furniture is a furniture designed to be made from corrugated fiberboard, heavy paperboard, or fiber tubes. There are five different types of cardboard furniture. Wiggle side chair by Frank Gehry for NGV Design, 1972 Although people have lived on and around cardboard for as long as it has existed, it was probably first introduced to the design world by Frank Gehry (b. 1929). The line, which is still made and sold by Vitra, consists of modern chairs and tables. Made with hidden screws and fiberboard edging, the tables are said to hold thousands of pounds. The "Wiggle Chair," which has won many design awards and has been included in museum shows at London's Design Museum and elsewhere, contains 60 layers of corrugated cardboard held together by hidden screws and fibreboard edging.
Falthocker cardboard stool, by Hans-Peter Stange, Berlin 1979 Pappbett cardboard bed, by Hans-Peter Stange, Berlin 1989 Paper tube chair by Manfred Kielnhofer, 2002[4] Modular cardboard furniture by Jonathan Choe and Robin Wau for the Singapore Biennale Opening Party, 2006 Cardboard chair by Amrish Kawa In the Beginning of the 1980s cardboard furniture becomes very popular in France by the technique of Eric Guiomar. It is totally different to the technique of Frank Gehry. The furniture in the technique of Guiomar is made with corrugated cardboard, simple, double and triple groove. First, a frame is created with intertwined cardboard plates which are cut out according to the original design. This is the support frame of the piece, just like it would be the case for a ship. Then, the frame is covered with cardboard that will be "rolled" on its forms to a perfect fit. This technique allows a great freedom in the choice of shapes and materials. Aside from gallery exhibits, the idea of using cardboard as a material for constructing furniture is becoming increasingly popular, especially given its sustainable credentials.
Cardboard is fully recyclable and is predominantly made from recycled paper. It usually can also be printed on in any color and pattern. New areas of marketing have started to go deeper in sustainable products. Green marketing is one of them, it defines segments inclined to consume a product like cardboard furniture (e.g. LOHAS).Frank Gehry was one of the first designers to produce cardboard furniture, having created the Wiggle side chair in 1972. Manufacturers had been seeking an alternative to plastic since the 1960s but struggled to find anything that could compete with its light flexibility.At that time, cardboard was often just a single layer and attempts to reinforce it were made by folding and inserting tabs and slots. But Gehry, who was born in 1929, came up with a solution thanks in part to childhood spent playing in his grandfather’s hardware store every Saturday morning, building villages and cities from scraps of plywood.After a stint as a truck driver and a radio announcer, Gehry turned to architecture and eventually graduated in the 1950s.
According to Vitra, the Swiss contemporary furniture company that has produced Gehry’s cardboard furniture designs since 1986, the architect saw a pile of corrugated cardboard outside his office one day and began to experiment. He was already using cardboard to build architecture models and realised that it became very strong when glued together.The resulting series of furniture was called Easy Edges and included the Wiggle side chair. The furniture was made by gluing layers of card in alternating directions. The Wiggle chair and table were hugely successful but Gehry was unhappy because the prices did not conform to his philosophy that furniture should be affordable to all.Gehry abandoned furniture design and returned to architecture. His most recognisable design is probably the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Last October, he was appointed joint architect with Foster + Partners to design the High Street phase of the Battersea Power Station development in London.VitraWiggle Side ChairInformationProducts of the familyDesigner