PVC

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The origins of this material lay in experimentation in the 19th century and in the years immediately before the First World War. But it was not until the interwar years that manufacturing on any significant scale began to be undertaken in Germany and the United States. In 1928 the Carbide and Carbon Chemical Corporation began to manufacture PVC as a rigid plastic under the trade name Vinylite and it was used in the pressing of records by RCA-Victor. It was also soon used for many other products including the manufacture of clock cases, ash trays, bowls, light fittings, lampshades, and flooring. The first flexible vinyl plastic produced in the USA was manufactured by the B. F. Goodrich Company in 1931 and taken up by a number of other large companies in the late 1930s. Celebrating the new plastics as a reflection of the modern spirit the Pierce Foundation displayed a whole room furnished and equipped with a variety of PVC products at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition in 1933. In the post-Second World War period the uses of PVC were widespread. In addition to the ever-increasing array of packaging products from shampoo sachets to bleach bottles it has been used for shoes, wellington boots, dustbins, road signs, furniture, upholstery, and in the construction of fabrics. PVC is also widely used in building and decorating, from skirting boards to cornices. Amongst the most celebrated designs using the material were the 1967 Blow Chair by Scolari, De Pas, D'Urbino, and Lomazzo for Zanotta, furniture by Quasar Khanh, and dresses and fashion.

1. Pigment volume concentration; the percentage of pigment by volume in the total volume of a paint film.
2. Abbr. for polyvinyl chloride.