For over two decades, the Vitra Design Museum has been making miniature replicas of milestones in furniture design. The Miniatures Collection encapsulates the entire history of industrial furniture design - moving from Historicism and Art Nouveau to the New Objectivity of Bauhaus and Radical Design, and from Postmodernism all the way up to the present day. Exactly one sixth of the size of the historical originals, the chairs are all true to scale and precisely recreate the smallest details of construction, material and color. The high standard of authenticity even extends to the natural grain of the wood, the reproduction of screws and the elaborate handicraft techniques involved. This has made the miniatures into popular collector's items as well as ideal illustrative material for universities, design schools and architects.

Marc Newson originally produced the Lockheed Lounge as the centerpiece of an exhibition of his pieces at the Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Sydney. It was widely acclaimed and was bought by the National Gallery of Australia.

Its concept was based "loosely, very loosely" on the chaise longue in Jacques-Louis David's 1800 portrait of Madame Recamier. "I had this image of a fluid, aluminum form. The shape was sculpted out of a piece of foam, the exact same way you'd create a surfboard. The only way to get the aluminum on was to beat little pieces of metal into shape with a wooden mallet and attach them with rivets. That's where the airplane metaphor came from. So I called it the Lockheed Lounge."

Each Vitra miniature is true to the original in construction and materials, and reduced in size on a scale of 1:6. Each miniature is packaged in a wooden box, accompanied by an informational booklet. Production notes: Each of the delicate objects are made by hand; on average, each miniature requires five hours of careful manual work. Ongoing quality control ensures that every miniature corresponds to its larger original in terms of finishing, details and materials.