Side Chair, "Easy Edges"

Frank Gehry

1 of 2

Caption

Frank Gehry American, born 1929. Side Chair, "Easy Edges", designed 1971; manufactured ca. 1982. Corrugated cardboard, pressed board, wood, 33 3/8 x 14 x 23 1/4 in. (84.8 x 35.6 x 59.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Paul F. Walter, 83.108.1. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 83.108.1_view1_bw.jpg)

Designer

Frank Gehry

Title

Side Chair, "Easy Edges"

Date

designed 1971; manufactured ca. 1982

Geography

Place manufactured: United States

Medium

Corrugated cardboard, pressed board, wood

Classification

Furniture

Dimensions

33 3/8 x 14 x 23 1/4 in. (84.8 x 35.6 x 59.1 cm)

Markings

Unmarked

Credit Line

Gift of Paul F. Walter

Accession Number

83.108.1

Rights

Creative Commons-BY

You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

Frequent Art Questions

  • What can you tell me about 83.108.1?

    That curvy chair is called "Easy Edges," and it was designed by the architect Frank Gehry. It's made from 27 layers of corrugated cardboard! Its sides are covered in thin pieces of wood.
    Thanks, that's interesting.
  • What is this?

    This is the Wiggle side chair, designed by Frank Gehry in 1972! It's made from a material Gehry developed called Edge Board, which consists of glued layers of corrugated cardboard running in alternating directions. Furniture made with this material is surprisingly sturdy and even has a noise-reducing effect when in a room! If you look closely, you can see the structure of the corrugated cardboard "wiggles", just like the overall form of the chair!
  • What's the name of this piece and how was it made?

    This is the "Easy Edges," side chair designed by Frank Gehry in 1971 and manufactured in 1982.The chair was made from a single long piece of cardboard, with corrugated edges. You can see what the initial sheet would have been like by looking at the straight back of the chair.
    That's why I noticed it!
    It is very impressively made isn't it? The sheet was bent and curved into the shape of the chair from that single length of cardboard, and then a wooden dowel and shaped pressed board were used to hold the shape together!
    Thank you!
  • Tell me more about this please.

    This side chair is from the "Easy Edges" collection and was designed by famed architect Frank Gehry. He designed it in 1971, but this one was produced around 1982. The chair is mades of corrugated cardboard, pressed board, like particle board, and wood. It was formed from a single length of 27 layers of cross-laminated corrugated cardboard! Designs like this can be linked to the emergence of environmental movements at the time.
  • Was this designed by the same Frank Gehry that designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao?

    Yes! It was designed by THE Frank Gehry! In fact, the “Easy Edges” furniture collection to which this chair belongs was largely responsible for Gehry’s rise to fame in the 1970’s!

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