Wood If He Could

Actor And Carpenter Nick Offerman On His Love Affair With Plywood, That Humblest Of Building Materials, Finally Getting Its Due In A Major Exhibition.

- Nick Offerman

SEXY IS a matter of taste. For me? Beyoncé. Boom! The Tesla all-electric automobile. Ka-powee! And you might want to sit down for this one: plywood!

For most of you, when it comes to tripping one’s trigger, plywood probably occupies a space just below tofu or cement. But for me, a carpenter long before I became an actor, it is deserving of sonnets and love songs. I was therefore thrilled to learn that London’s Victoria and Albert, the world’s leading museum of art and design, was mounting the first exhibition devoted to plywood. What were they waiting for?

The versatile wood sandwich has been mocked for far too long. Consider how many modern comforts depend on plywood—everything from furniture to homes to the occasional fuselage and wings of airplanes, like the de Havilland Mosquito, the heroic British bomber of World War II. Iconic designers such as Alvar Aalto and Charles and Ray Eames have steamed and bent it into award-winning chairs. This redoubtable material has supported you and, arguably, the economies of nations since its invention by Samuel Bentham, a British naval engineer, in 1797.