100 Objects from Century of the Child

Piet Zwart. Child’s chair designed for Wassenaar Kindergarten, the Netherlands. 1935 The simple planar structure of this chair, developed from an earlier design of 1919, reflects Zwart’s association with the avant-garde De Stijl group. Zwart designed the furniture for the kindergarten that his children attended, one of a considerable number of Montessori schools established in the Netherlands between the wars. The piece reflects the importance Italian educator Maria Montessori attached to the design of teaching materials and the classroom environment, recommending “light furniture which is correspondingly simple and economical in the extreme.” Zwart wanted to make the chair more widely available as an affordable flat-pack kit, but could not interest a manufacturer. Learn more at MoMA.org/centuryofthechild

Piet Zwart. Child’s chair designed for Wassenaar Kindergarten, the Netherlands. 1935

The simple planar structure of this chair, developed from an earlier design of 1919, reflects Zwart’s association with the avant-garde De Stijl group. Zwart designed the furniture for the kindergarten that his children attended, one of a considerable number of Montessori schools established in the Netherlands between the wars. The piece reflects the importance Italian educator Maria Montessori attached to the design of teaching materials and the classroom environment, recommending “light furniture which is correspondingly simple and economical in the extreme.” Zwart wanted to make the chair more widely available as an affordable flat-pack kit, but could not interest a manufacturer.

Learn more at MoMA.org/centuryofthechild

08/4/12
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Get your daily dose of design from the MoMA exhibition Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000. During each of the 100 days of the exhibition we will showcase an object featured in the show.

To find out more about Century of the Child visit MoMA.org/centuryofthechild.

Purchase the exhibition catalogue on MoMAStore.org or get the digital edition for the iPad on iTunes.

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