Handle with Care: Unpacking a Bulky Table

Text by Lisa Andreani, Simon Mitchel, Hanan Kataw, Roxanna Brands, Marianna Mitchell, Louise Rietvink, Gabriela Szalanska, Mara Trübenbach, Regina Bittner.

Marcel Breuer’s Isokon table as a case study for the museum object
In 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.