An exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London uses Garnica plywood

From 15 July to 12 November, an exhibition is being held at the Victoria y Albert Museum entitled  Material of the Modern World - Plywood:, and is all about the use of plywood over the centuries. Garnica has supplied 230 panels for this exhibition through its distributor in the UK, James Latham.

You can see the use of this important material in the manufacture of vehicles, airplanes, furniture, etc., through the items created by designers and artists such as Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer or Charles and Ray Eames.

On exhibition are the "Armchair", by Alvar Aalto; planes like the Spitfire or the "Havilland Mosquito"; the Eames brothers "DCM Chair"; housing models made with plywood; Singer sewing machines with their plywood cover, and surfboards. Also, a great variety of 19th century photos, such as a prototype of a rail transport system based on the use of plywood, a material whose lightness, versatility and strength has led it to being used in many contexts.

The exhibition is curated by Christopher Wilk and Elizabeth Bisley, who are in charge of the furniture, textiles and fashion division at the V & A Museum. In this exhibition, new items have been assembled that have never been publicly displayed before. Over the almost four months in which it will be open to the public, it is expected that a large number of visitors and specialists in wood and furniture will attend, as well as decorators, designers and architects.

The materials used in the exhibition have been supplied to the organisation by  James Latham, a family company that is more than two-and-a-half centuries old, and the distributor of Garnica products in the United Kingdom.  We have contributed 140 panels of Garnica Fireshield and 90 panels of Garnica Elegance Birch of the highest quality to the exhibition. 

Chris Sutton, Managing Director of James Latham explains that "the exhibition focuses on the many and varied methods of using plywood and its historical evolution from ancient times to the most modern applications in today's digital age.”  For Sutton, the context of this exhibition is also an ideal way to explain the history of his company, James Latham: "Throughout our 260 years of history, we have supplied plywood boards for a large part of the many uses and innovative applications that are shown in this exhibition.”

The Victoria & Albert Museum, National Museum of Art and Design in London, is a museum dedicated primarily to the decorative arts and fine arts. It is located on the corner between Cromwell Gardens and Exhibition Road in West London. It has great resources for students of design as it contains the British National Collection of applied arts.  It covers an area of 45,000 square metres and has 145 galleries.

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