‘Garden Egg’ and ‘Kangaroo Chair’ are now regarded as icons of East German design. This seating furniture was made from the plastic polyurethane (PUR) as part of an exciting history of transfer between East and West. After the Second World War, plastics paved the way for an era of seemingly limitless consumption. Mass-produced, inexpensive and available in almost any colour and shape, they inspired product design and industrial production.

The exhibition looks at PUR furniture production up to the early 1980s and, in addition to photos, advertising and film excerpts, shows numerous iconic and previously little-known examples of furniture – designed in the Federal Republic and the GDR. It looks at design-historical and economic-political aspects and questions the future handling of polyurethane, a material that is difficult to recycle.

Architecture and graphic design are coordinated in a modular system which can be flexibly adapted and extended to the various spatial conditions in future exhibitions.