PLYWOOD: MATERIAL OF THE MODERN WORLD, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7, until 12th November 2017
I am grateful to John Kirkwood to visiting and writing about this exhibition:
© John Kirkwood
Perhaps not surprisingly this is a world-first exhibition featuring as it does the many uses to which plywood has been put.
Like me, I’m sure you thought it was a twentieth century invention but apparently fragments of layered board have been found in Egyptian tombs – perhaps they thought if the mummies came back to life they might fancy a bit of DIY to amuse themselves – but it really came into its own in the late nineteenth century with the advent of mass production.
Plywood’s ubiquity has been embraced by furniture makers, manufacturers of surfboards and skateboards, designers, architects and engineers and this very interesting exhibition takes visitors through plywood’s many transformations from a cheap product to material prized by mid-century modernists and by today’s flourishing maker movement.
©John Kirkwood
I so enjoyed the exhibition that I left feeling that ‘plywood is my wood!’
Tim Forrest's E & A 