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.

Along with the Rood Blauwe Stoel (1918), the Zig Zag Stoel is probably the best-known of Gerrit T. Rietveld's designs. Rietveld takes up Mart Stam's idea for a cantilevered chair (1926) and makes formal references to the Sitzgeiststuhl of the brothers Heinz and Bodo Rasch (1927).

Although it is constructed with four individual boards, the Zig Zag Stoel represents a variation on an old theme: the chair made from a single piece of wood. It was only four years later that Rietveld succeeded in building the first cantilevered chair made with a single sheet of plywood. Nevertheless, the Zig Zag Stoel is regarded as an admirable synthesis of form, function and construction. It was produced with and without armrests, with a perforated or solid back surface, and in a child high chair version.

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.