A Furniture Fashion

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28529, 7 March 1958, Page 22

A Furniture Fashion

There was a time when chairs were padded with so much stuffing that they weighed a couple of hundredweight, requiring two people to lift them across the room. Today the accent is on lightness, portability and elegance and the quintessence appears to have been reached with the spread of the black metal habit. Whether it be iron tube, solid iron rod, brass or duralumin matters little as long as it is strong, well shaped and painted black. Stove enamel is the very thing to give it the right tone of blackness. It sounds like a throw-back to the iron bedstead and the worst abominations of the Industrial Revolution. But anyone who has seen black iron furniture will know, why the fashion is invading the modern home. Wicker is put on the black.metal frames of chairs, accentuating their lightness and grace. In the right setting they give a cool tropical look to a room. Other materials also go with these metal frames besides wicker—wood, glass, plastics, marble, to mention a few. Five years ago furniture of black metal was rarely seen except in milk bars and factory cafeterias. People looked down on it as being utility stuff. Then they started bringing it on to their terraces and patios. Finally the furniture designers got hold of it and it swept through the world bringing incredible lightness and a fine new dramatic feeling indoors. Here are some of the things claimed for it:— It has grace and great strength without bulk or clumsiness. The fine thin lines of the metal components allow uninterrupted viewing, so giving a great feeling of depth and 4* space in small rooms. Joints, welded or brazed, are smooth and almost unnoticeable. The slenderness and constantly even gauge of metal are in sharp contrast to the variations in thickness necessary in wood. Metal gives wide scope for designs achieved entirely in a sense of unspoiled elegant line. Metal can be combined very successfully with a great range of other materials, such as wood, cane, marble, glass, fabric. Its stove-enamelled finish is as durable as any finishing treatment that is applied to wood. At first metal was used mainly for chair and table legs, out as its adaptability became better understood the designers let their imagination go and began using it for other things, too. Today they apply it to almost every'piece of furniture in the house. • In New Zealand there are'black metal armchairs with padded or foam rubber cushions, kitchen chairs, dining chairs, a wide range of occasional tables topped with wood or glass, magazine racks, candlesticks, and all kinds of wall fixtures.

You can now get beds and divans built up on tube metal frames. Your electric room heater comes in a light black iron frame, and the same material makes a bookcase, a hallstand, or a room divider. In America, they are even putting pianos on black metal.

It is customary now to mount these spindly legs on non-slip rubber feet, making them firmer and silent to handle. In the small house this sort of furniture has the advantage of being easily moved from room to room, giving it a multi-purpose quality lacking in furniture of great weight and bulk. Chairs can do a double job, moving from lounge to dining room, from dining room to bedroom. Divans can provide sleeping or daytime seating. And everything in tube metal is so easy to clean and so hard to damage.