Vitra - Eames Elephant multiplex ash grey, limited edition

Vitra Eames Elephant, plywood, grey.

The Elephant is a design by Charles & Ray Eames from 1945, but never before has the elephant been taken into series production by Vitra. The process of experimenting with bending plywood took years, but the elephant with multiple curves turned out to be too difficult to produce for the general public. For a long time the only copy was only on display at the Modern Museum of Art in New York, until now!

The technology is now far enough and we can all enjoy it. After the elephant was previously released in a plastic version, it is now covered in plywood with high-quality American cherry veneer. The elegant wooden elephant looks beautiful in the modern living room and is an asset to your interior.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the iconic piece in 2020, Vitra launched Eames Elephant in gray-stained plywood as a limited, numbered edition of 999 pieces. The beautiful gray finish ensures that the beautiful natural grain of the plywood is visible.

The elephant is 35 centimeters wide, 42 centimeters high and 41 centimeters deep.

The Designer:

Ray and Charles Eames were an American designer couple whose name is familiar for anyone with an interest in modern design. Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied architecture at University of Washington and, invited by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, continued his studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Arts, Michigan in 1940. There he met Eero Saarinen, with whom he participated in a competition called ”Organic Design in Home Furnishing”, arranged by New York’s MoMA. Eames and Saarinen won the competition using a plywood moulding technique originally developed by Alvar Aalto. In Cranbrook Charles Eames also met her future wife Ray, and the couple got married in 1941.