Prototype dining table, designed by Marcel Breuer, manufactured by Isokon Furniture Company, moulded birch plywood, London, 1936

Dining table of compression-moulded plywood. The table's rectangular top is made from a a single sheet of plywood. It is slightly overhanging, glued to the separate units which make up its tapering legs. The legs are reinforced by two additional layers of plywood glued underneath.

Bequeathed by John Russell Brown in memory of Gilbert and Margaret Cousland

This table originally belonged to Gilbert Cousland, F.R.P.S. (1904-1977), a Scottish photographer and children's author, and his first wife, Winifred 'Mainie' Mary Fulton Thomson (1904-1950). It is not known exactly how the table came into the couple's possession. However, it is known that Cousland lived with his wife in the Lawn Road ‘Isokon’ flats (in flat no. 19 to be precise) between 1934 and 1938, the same period at which Marcel Breuer also resided there. It is likely that Cousland acquired the table during his time at Lawn Road. Cousland later remarried, to Geraldine Margaret Cousland, M.V.O. (1921-2005), at some point after Mainie’s death. From the 1950s the table was in the kitchen of the Couslands' house in Hooe, East Sussex, where it remained until Margaret Cousland's death in 2005. Its most recent owner, the Shakespeare scholar John Russell Brown (1923-2015), was a friend of Margaret Cousland. Mr Brown decided to bequeath it to the V&A in the Couslands' name [RF 2015/797].

The Bauhaus designer Marcel Breuer emigrated to Britain in October 1935. He was allowed to work in Britain on the basis that he had formed an architectural partnership with FRS Yorke. However, in order to earn a living he needed further work. That was to be provided (at least in theory) by working for the Isokon Furniture Company, formally founded in December 1935 (though planned earlier) by Jack Pritchard as part of his mission to introduce continental-inspired modernism to Britain. Breuer’s arrival in Britain had been made possible in no small part through the assistance of Walter Gropius, former Director of the Bauhaus and Breuer’s mentor throughout his career, who had arrived in London in October 1934. Gropius became the Controller of Design for Isokon, a very grand title for a firm with very few staff.

Isokon concentrated on furniture made from plywood, a material which Pritchard knew well from his recent experience as representative for Venesta, the UK distributor of AM Luther, an Estonian plywood company. Breuer’s first designs for Isokon were for chairs, which are well represented in the V&A collection. In the summer of 1936 Breuer patented a dining table which followed the very simple design of an earlier set of nesting tables (see CIRC.314-1965): both designs were moulded from a single sheet of plywood cut in the shape of a rectangular top, curved over at either side, the ends of the long sides shaped as continuous, tapering legs. The original dining table design tended to bend inwards from the legs, owing to its size and lack of any bracing or reinforcement of the legs. The final design which went to market (see W.46-1979) replaced the single sheet of plywood with a more elaborate but still very lightweight plywood construction, with a separate top that bends down on the long sides to join independent, T-shaped legs, made up of a flat leg with reinforcing fin glued along its height.

This version of the table is a prototype which was never put into production but which clearly followed the first design and preceded the production version. In an attempt to avoid deflection of the table, two layers of reinforcement in the shape of the legs but each gradually reduced in size, were glued to the inside of the table. That the legs ended up being made of three layers of formed plywood sheets followed the practice in which plywood, or plywood assemblages, were normally made of an odd rather than even number of layers.

In the summer of 1936, Marcel Breuer patented a dining table formed from a single sheet of plywood, it was related visually to the nesting tables he had earlier designed for Isokon (see CIRC.314-1965). Unfortunately, the legs of the initial prototypes had a tendency to deflect inwards, causing it to be unstable. This prototype is a development of the initial design, representing Breuer's attempt to remedy the problematic leg-design. Instead of being made from a single sheet, its top and legs are separate units. The legs have been reinforced with two gradually smaller versions of themselves, glued underneath, to help brace them. Unfortunately, the solution was not a success: the resulting table was deemed unacceptably heavy for lightweight, Modernist furniture. The eventual production version had instead independent T-shaped legs, which were reinforced by a fin running down the height of each. However, this protoype is important because it shows a gradual process of design, which eventually resulted in the Isokon BT3 dining table (see W.46-1979).

This object was originally owned by Gilbert Cousland FRPS (1904-1977), a photographer and children's author. Cousland resided in the Isokon flats at Lawn Road, Hampstead, between 1934 and 1938, with his wife, Winifred 'Mainie' Mary Fulton Thomson (1904-1950). The period of the Couslands' residency at Lawn Road coincided with that of Marcel Breuer, who lived there for two years following is emigration from Germany in October 1935.

W.12-2015