This side chair was the product of a team research project led by Breuer, a celebrated architect and Bauhaus émigré known for his tubular metal furniture. Collaborating with the United States Forest Products Laboratory (a division of the Department of Agriculture), he combined knowledge accumulated over fifteen years of experimentation with plywood and recent developments in high-frequency gluing. The team's report boasted of the chair's ability to carry a load of five hundred pounds, and the competition jury described the design as "ingeniously articulated."
Gallery label from What Was Good Design? MoMA's Message 1944–56, May 6, 2009–January 10, 2011.