NEW YORK --

"Plywood: Material, Process, Form" is the title of a year-long exhibit taking place at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). 

The exhibition, which opened Feb. 2 and runs through Feb. 27, 2012, showcases plywood as an important modern material that gave 20th-century designers of everyday objects, furniture, and architecture enhanced flexibility in shaping modern forms at an industrial scale.

The installation features examples, drawn from MoMA's collection, of modern designs that take advantage of the formal and aesthetic possibilities offered by plywood, from around 1930 through the 1950s. Archival photographs illustrate the process of design and manufacture in plywood.

Iconic furniture by Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Arne Jacobsen appear alongside organic platters by Tapio Wirkkala, Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool, an architectural model for a prefabricated house by Marcel Breuer, and experimental designs for plywood in the aeronautics industry

The exhibit was organized by Juliet Kinchin, curator, and Aidan O’Connor, curatorial assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.

Learn more at moma.org.

Sori Yanagi's Butterfly Stool was manufactured in 1956 by Tendo Co. Ltd. of Tokyo using molded plywood and metal.