Particle boards have become the quiet background of contemporary interiors. Continuing a long history of imitation, they no longer rely on thin layers of real wood but on printed images that reproduce its grain through photography and digital editing. What was once a surface defined by the qualities of wood has become a surface of representation, where nature is presented as an image for commodification.
While the imitation is mostly obvious, it is not there to deceive but to reassure. The printed surfaces carry the symbolic values long associated with wood such as warmth, stability, care and familiarity. These associations obscure the reality that most furniture itself is mass produced and fast fashioned. Within an economy built on speed and replacement, the imitation provides a sense of continuity, preserving the visual comfort of wood even when its substance and lifespan are entirely different.
The image of wood grain is printed on a thin layer of PVC foil or melamine laminate, adhered by vacuum pressing on top of real wood particles bound by urea-formaldehyde resin. These particles comprise a wild mix of trees: mostly fast-growing softwoods like pine, spruce, fir, and aspen, often mixed with birch or oak. While some wood grows in forests planted expressly for these boards, much comes from sawdust and leftovers of wood manufacturers, plus up to 40% old particle boards from disposed furniture. Through global trade of furniture and wood, the chips in particle boards can literally come from almost any place in the world, forming a bound of wood untraceable to the place where it grew.
By reshaping and sanding discarded furniture panels, Lukas Klein exposes the layered structure beneath their printed veneers, revealing the distance between image and matter. A first series was produced for the Forward Furniture Club at Dutch Design Week 2025, where it reflects on imitation as a defining language of contemporary design and domesticity.
