Bauhaus Taschenbuch 24. Handle with Care: Unpacking a Bulky Table

What happens to an everyday object when it becomes part of a museum collection? The table designed by the Bauhaus designer and émigré Marcel Breuer for the Isokon Furniture Company in London in 1936, which is today part of the Bauhaus collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, is used as a case study on the postgraduate research and curatorial programme.

While the history of art and design generally focuses on the stylistic classification of objects, the Bauhaus Lab participants suggest an alternative approach: they investigate the material stories, social practices, and different phases of commodification and ownership that the objects pass through on their way from personal possessions to items in a museum collection. The Lab critically analyses the various modes of social existence embodied in the objects.