Wartime innovations often found peacetime applications. In this instance, the Southampton-based manufacturer of helicopters, Cierva Autogiro, had developed techniques of laminating and shaping wood to make strong and light helicopter blades. The same technology was applied to this chair soon after the close of the war. Over one hundred layers of wood were bonded together under high frequency electrical pressure with phenoformaldehyde, a synthetic resin. It was designed by an eminent Scottish architect, Basil Spence, and made by a firm based in Glasgow, H. Morris & Co. However, new technologies did not come cheap. In 1950 the chair was advertised at £31 18s 3d, at a time when the average British annual income was just £101.