Let’s start at the beginning: What exactly is plywood?

Plywood is a manufactured panel made up of layers of solid wood veneer (or plies). The red-cut veneers are usually layered crosswise, glued together, and compressed under heat. Because it is manufactured in layers, it is incredibly strong, but also lightweight.

Plywood can also be formed into single or double curved shapes. This is done by aligning the veneers on a curved base. During the pressing process, the adhesive then bonds the veneers into the desired shape.

In Europe, beech and birch are preferred wood for molded plywood because of their availability and high bending strength.

Modern history of plywood

The breakthrough for the plywood industry was the invention of the rotary cutter in the 19th century, which made it possible to cut extremely thin sheets of wood from a log (Heathcote, 2017).

After plywood became highly developed in aircraft construction during the war, it also began to become an everyday material of domestic life after World War II. During this period, the standardized production of plywood worldwide and its unique material properties enabled its use on a much larger scale than ever before (Wilk and Bisley, 2017, p. 148).

Factory production reduced the production costs of plywood chairs, making them affordable for the first time to a large part of the population. When plywood was introduced to the furniture market, its malleability inspired various modernist architects in the first half of the 20th century to reinvent traditional seating shapes.

Changes in function and design

Unlike bentwood, invented a decade earlier by Michael Thonet, which allowed the bending of wooden rods, plywood allowed the creation of curved surfaces for seats for the first time. A revolutionary possibility was the formation of one-piece plywood seats and backrests for chairs, first explored by Gerrit Rietveld and Alvar Aalto around 1930.

In the postwar years, Ray and Charles Eames, along with Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, brought about groundbreaking changes when they experimented with shaping plywood in more than one plane.

"Their goal was to produce functional and inexpensive chairs that would conform perfectly to the human anatomy. Although their early designs did not allow for complex curves that could be comfortable without padding, after five years of experimentation they found a way to bend and shape plywood, creating compound curves that were optimal for the human body" (MoMA Learning, no date). Their DCM chair became the most influential and widely imitated chair of the mid-twentieth century (Wilk and Bisley, 2017, p. 160).

Features of spring

Wood is an elastic material. Due to its fibrous structure, it can bend and twist. Therefore, each piece of plywood, which consists of thin layers of wood, has a naturally springy property. Depending on the material thickness, surface contour and the chair base, elastic effects can be created in the seat and backrest. Various designers explored these properties and used them in chair design.

Aalto's Paimio chair embodies a springy seat that floats between its supports. The cantilevered chair allows for elastic movement of the entire seat, which is supported by a frame in the shape of an open curve.

In the 1950s, various designers played with the flexibility properties of the backrest. By cutting holes or tapering parts of the chair's shape, a "movable joint" could be created.

In Sori Yanagi's butterfly stool, it is the protruding surfaces of the seat that create a slight spring effect.

Latest innovations

About 40 years had to pass before the use of plywood for furniture was innovated.

“In 1992, Frank Gehry, inspired by woven baskets, created the Bentwood furniture collection” for Knoll (Architectural Record, 1992).

The novelty of his designs was the absence of additional materials. The chairs' continuous and flowing structures are made entirely of lightweight plywood strips, which at the same time provide a springy comfort. The pieces are sold at prices ranging from £1100 to £7200.

In the 21st century we find rather insignificant developments in the field of molded plywood.

As a further development of the Gehry chairs, German designer Jens Otten developed a flexible, lightweight chair using CNC technology in 2008.

Another outstanding concept of recent years is a stool by Chinese designer Min Chen, which consists of a layer of bamboo bent into an arched shape. The airy arrangement of the bamboo veneers, glued together at the ends to form the legs, creates not only a unique look but also a new seating experience. Nominated for the Loewe Craft Prize 2018, the stool gained recognition but is not yet on the market.

Literature

Heathcote (2017) ‘How plywood took off as a design material’, 13 July.
Wilk, C. and Bisley, E. (2017) Plywood: a material story. [London] : London : Thames and Hudson ; London Eye.
MoMA Learning (no date) Side Chair (Model DCW).
Architectural Record (1992) Knoll Designer Bios – Frank Gehry.