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.

The Vegetal is an organically-shaped chair that is meant to look as if it had taken its shape naturally. With that goal in mind and inspired by small trees which American gardeners had fashioned into the shape of seating furniture, the French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec set about designing the Vegetal. Designed for outdoor use, the chair had to be both water-resistant and for practical purposes, easily stackable.

Neither the Bouroullec brothers nor Vitra could have imagined that it would take four years of intense work on both the design and the development of the chair before the ambitious project would finally be realized. The inspiration of natural vegetation is easy to see in the intricate, asymmetrical structure of the branch-like ribs that make up the Vegetal's seat shell as well as the color scheme. Made from polyamide and manufactured using injection moulding, the chair is an exploration of the limits of its material and the latest production techniques.

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.

Sold in a set of 3.