Plan Chest in Beech, Central Europe, 1950

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This antique plan chest in beech wood is an industrial filing cabinet with ten flat drawers and movable interior dividers. … Read more This antique plan chest in beech wood is an industrial filing cabinet with ten flat drawers and movable interior dividers. It originates from Central Europe, from the middle of the twentieth century, when technical furniture was made in solid beech and plywood.The plan chest was born in drawing offices and technical archives: very wide, very shallow drawers, meant to hold sheets flat without folding them. Here the interior dividers are movable and split each drawer into two or four compartments, which suggests a later use for sorting small parts.The case is solid beech and plywood, with a hardboard back nailed to the frame. The ten drawers are dovetailed and run on wooden guides. Each front carries two solid-batten pulls with a hollowed half-round grip, a joinery solution that avoids any metal hardware.The wood keeps its natural colour, between honey and blond, with the fine, even grain proper to beech. Use has slightly darkened the pulls and the corners of the fronts. There is no added varnish and no visible restoration.At 120 cm across the front and 90 deep, it is an island piece: it works as a central cabinet in a studio, a low sideboard in a wide living room or a working archive for anyone handling large formats. The pale tone and the absence of hardware make it compatible with Nordic and minimal interiors. See less