Gerald Summers & Marjorie Butcher: Makers of Simple Furniture: 1931-1940

Inside the interwar British design store that pioneered midcentury modern plywood furniture

In 1931, the English designer Gerald Summers (1899-1967) and his partner, Marjorie Butcher (1909-96), opened their London shop Makers of Simple Furniture. A small company, they produced made-to-order furniture in limited quantities. Until the firm's closing in 1940, Makers of Simple Furniture produced hundreds of ingenious furniture designs in plywood. Conceived, in Summers' words, as "furniture for t...