Frank Gehry

FRANK O. GEHRY (Toronto, 1929–Santa Monica, 2025).
Wiggle Side Chair, designed in 1972
Produced by Vitra in the 1990s.
Corrugated cardboard, hardboard, or fiberboard and Masonite.
In good condition, with visible signs of wear consistent with its age.
Measurements: 84 × 34 × 60 cm.

The Wiggle Side Chair is part of the famous Easy Edges series, through which Frank Gehry transformed an everyday material like cardboard into a sturdy piece of furniture with a striking sculptural presence. Successive layers of corrugated cardboard, glued and compressed, create a surprisingly solid structure, reinforced laterally by hardboard panels.

Its continuous profile traces a series of curves that link the base, seat, and backrest as if they were a folded ribbon. The visible texture of the layers accentuates the piece’s material character, while the sinuous form provides comfort and a sense of movement rarely found in an object of such an elementary appearance.

A Canadian-born architect and designer, Frank Gehry was one of the most influential figures in contemporary architecture. His furniture designs share with his buildings a focus on experimentation, construction, and dynamic forms. Examples of the Wiggle Side Chair are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago; other cardboard designs by Gehry are part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.