Comments on: Furniture Out of Time

By: BillT

BillT — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:25:16 +0000

Oh, I dunno – some of their stuff LOOKS nice – but as to build quality and quality of materials? Yeah, that’s another question. Unless you like termite barf and RTA potmetal/zinc camlock connectors…

My daughter has asked me to replicate a piece of furniture or two from the PB catalog. If I were to build it, no doubt it would be a much more substantial piece of furniture than what you would purchase from PB.

By: andrewr

andrewr — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:10:35 +0000

As a professional software engineer, the first thing I thought of was a common idea within software. Dr Christopher Alexander is a professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley and his core idea that Good Design is *objective* (eg, not *subjective*) to this day this makes him an “outlier” within the world of Architecture, not to mention Software Engineering, where his ideas revolutionized how many people write software to this day. He wrote a book, “The Timeless Way of Building”, which is now out of print. However, he felt that there were so many attributes of any type of home or structure that were … Timeless… …that that meant that our collective, cultural “eye” seems to somehow know what a “ranch style” home or a mid-century modern is “supposed to look like”. He felt the primitive design elements were such a constant.. and that certain combinations of certain elements were so “expected”.. that one could almost write a software program that could design a specified type of building. (To note, others in the software world appropriated his ideas; he did not advocate for his ideas to be used in the software world.).
James O. Coplien’s “Advanced C++; Programming Styles and Idioms” was the precursor to the book that made Dr Alexander famouns in the the world of software in the mid-90′s. The mid-90′s book was called “Design Patterns: Elemens of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” (Gamma, Helm, Vlissides). I know these are “software books”, but there’s content in there that might stimulate that curious mind of yours. As a pro s/w engr and an amateur woodworker, I see commonalities in the two, but they’re hard to explain. However, I’m hoping you might find some utitlity in reading about Dr Alexander’s work, as the search for elemental forms was a key area of his life’s work. From “Timeless Way..”
“In short, we may forget about the idea that the building is made up of elements entirely, and recognize instead, the deeper fact that all these so-called elements are only labels for the patterns of relationships which really do repeat.”

By: John Cashman

John Cashman — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:08:29 +0000

I think probably the most recognizable form in any era is a blanket chest. Start with a basic rectangular box, add some feet to get it up off the floor. I’m pretty sure cavemen made an example with ogee feet. It’s on a cave wall somewhere.

By: muthrie

muthrie — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 16:12:01 +0000

Can’t wait! Really hope you do this book.

By: David Keller

David Keller — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:27:14 +0000

“Looks good in a Pottery Barn Catalog” -

Absolutely nothing looks good in a pottery barn catalog….

By: davidfdye

davidfdye — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 07:09:47 +0000

Though not furniture forms, pyramids and obelisks always have struck me as both modern and ancient. Many of the criteria you highlight (simple geometric ratios, minimal adornment) obviously apply to these architectural forms, and certainly the overlap between appealing architectural proportions and furniture proportions would make some analogy between the two topical.

Case in point: the Memphis pyramid vs. (obviously) Egyptian pyramids.

I love the concept, and would be quite interested in seeing what you make of it!