For over two decades, the Vitra Design Museum has been making miniature replicas of milestones in furniture design. The Miniatures Collection encapsulates the entire history of industrial furniture design - moving from Historicism and Art Nouveau to the New Objectivity of Bauhaus and Radical Design, and from Postmodernism all the way up to the present day. Exactly one sixth of the size of the historical originals, the chairs are all true to scale and precisely recreate the smallest details of construction, material and color. The high standard of authenticity even extends to the natural grain of the wood, the reproduction of screws and the elaborate handicraft techniques involved. This has made the miniatures into popular collector's items as well as ideal illustrative material for universities, design schools and architects.

The Tulip Chair is one of a series of chairs, stools, and tables developed by Eero Saarinen within a five-year period. The characteristic feature of the series is that the supporting structure has been pared to a central supporting stem like a wineglass, in order to emphasize the uniformity of table and chair.

Eero Saarinen describes the Tulip Chair: "The bases of tables and chairs in a typical furniture arrangement create an ugly, confusing, and restless world. I wanted to design a chair as an integrated whole once again. All important furniture of the past always had a holistic structure, from King Tut's chair to that of Thomas Chippendale. Today, we are parting ways with this holism with our predilection for plastic and laminated wood shells. I am looking forward to the point when the plastics industry will be capable of manufacturing the chair using just one material, the way I have designed it."

Each Vitra miniature is true to the original in construction and materials, and reduced in size on a scale of 1:6. Each miniature is packaged in a wooden box, accompanied by an informational booklet. Production notes: Each of the delicate objects are made by hand; on average, each miniature requires five hours of careful manual work. Ongoing quality control ensures that every miniature corresponds to its larger original in terms of finishing, details and materials.