Some furniture fills a room. This one tells a story the moment someone walks into your office. The Grandpa Beaver is made of cardboard, and it carries the name of the architect who reshaped how people think about buildings.
Where Architecture Becomes Something You Can Touch
Frank Gehry spent years proving that humble materials could be beautiful. His corrugated cardboard furniture is the clearest example, and the Grandpa Beaver may be the most generous shape in the whole family. Thick layers stacked slightly off kilter give it a surface that looks gnawed rather than built, which is exactly where the name comes from. Wide, curved and soft edged, it reads more like a sculpture than a seat.
This particular one belonged to Jay Chiat, the advertising man who hired Gehry to design the Binoculars Building for Chiat/Day in 1991. The chair spent years inside that Venice office. It was produced in an edition of fifty, but only this one worked in one of the most recognizable workplaces in the city.
It wears that history openly. The cardboard is worn, the edges are soft, and the surface carries decades of use. That is the appeal. Placed in a reception area or a corner of a private office, it starts conversations that a new chair never could.
Grandpa Beaver Chair Details
• Designer: Frank Gehry, from the Experimental Edges series
• Made: 1987, United States
• Material: Corrugated paper
• Dimensions: 34 in H x 53 in W x 40 in D (86.36 x 134.62 x 101.6 cm)
• Seat height: 14 in (35.56 cm)
• Condition: Fair, with wear consistent with age and use and minor losses
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