Handle with Care: Unpacking a Bulky Table (Paperback)

Paperback. Marcel Breuer's Isokon table as a case study for the museum objectIn 1936, Hungarian-born Bauhaus designer Marcel Lajos Breuer (1902-81) used cut and bent plywood to fashion a prototype of a wide, soft-edged table for the Isokon Furniture Company in London. Today a fixture of the Bauhaus collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and an emblem of the movement's furniture design sensibilities, Breuer's table presents an interesting curatorial conundrum: what happens to an everyday object when it becomes part of a museum collection This book investigates the material stories, social practices and various phases of commodification and ownership represented by this single object. Delving into the detailed history behind Breuer's table and the exhibition thereof, it also explores the institutional practices of the museum in its project of object archival. What happens to an everyday object when it becomes part of a museum collection? The table designed by the Bauhaus designer and emigre Marcel Breuer in 1936, which is today part of the Bauhaus collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, is used as a case study on the postgraduate research and curatorial programme. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…