Furniture In Today’s Home

Cue (NZERS), Issue 24, 31 May 1945, Page 40

Furniture In Today’s Home

Furniture and furnishing* are not easy to come by in New Zealand at present, and the position is not likely to improve until shortages of labour and material are overcome. By the time the furniture showrooms are fully stocked again, it is almost certain that a marked change will be noticeable in design compared with pre-war displays. Furniture will be of simpler design, materials and their treatment will have changed, and each piece will be built to fulfil its purpose in life. Built-in furniture, already in use, will be increasingly popular. Another simple type, free from frills and excess ornamentation, will be widely used. This is the functional style, built for purpose first and appearance second, and deriving its attractiveness from form and line only.

These trends have not arisen through the exigencies of war, but may be attributed to many influences of earlier periods. Two main features are apparent in modern furniture. First, the furniture must be, metaphorically speaking, ’’made to measure”. It must fit around the social habits of the family as a suit fits a well-dressed man. The second important trend is that the machine has more or less replaced the craftsman, and in a world of machines there is nothing much that can be done about it.

In the Victorian age it was difficult to walk through a room without knocking over some knick-knack, colliding with a what-not or endangering the aspidistra. The room and its

furniture reflected the life of the time. It was the period of the. birth of the middle-class, and they were out to impress and show that they had risen in the social scale. The rooms became ornamented and adorned with all kinds of fanciful motifs that would express an atmosphere of ’’class”. The race to achieve a social /position continued at such a' pace * that rooms became museums full of trophies of the chase —pictures of all the relations, crystal chandeliers, innumerable grotesque ornaments and, of course, an array of pot plants. The people living in the house became much the isame way—the housewife a museum, piece herself with her tight-waisted dresses and countless petticoats and her preference for remaining indoors. :

The war of 1914-18 did much in the emancipation of women. One result was that they began to take, a keener interest in the furniture and furnishing of the rooms in which they had to live. It became more and more difficult to obtain servants, and. the housewife had to think of the extra work her style of furnishing caused. Gradually furniture design was simplified. Heavy dust-catching ornament and mouldings were removed, and

upholstery work -was made so that it could be more easily cleaned. At the same time there was a general stocktaking of the furniture in the rooms, and unnecessary pieces were removed. It was therefore necessary that the remaining pieces of furniture should combine utmost efficiency with a certain amount of charm. Gradually, the

useless clutter was cleared from the rooms, and furniture design- and itsarrangement became more and more simplified. In recent years, built-in furniture has made a further big contribution towards giving freedom and efficiency in . the home, and the trend will continue. - The machine has made a great change in furniture just as it has in ether ways. Before the Industrial Revolution, furniture was hand-made, and the. craftsman looked upon, his trade as an art. He hand-carved his pieces with extreme care and used hand-made fabrics for upholstery. The machine made it possible to copy the craftsman’s work in mass quantities with the result that the ■ art of the trade -vanished.. The modern furniture maker has tried to restore the art, and

has studied form rather than ornament. The pieces are now plain, but they have a beauty of form, and the utmost use is being made of attractive modern materials. A tendency still exists for people to ouy highly ornamented pieces undei me impression that a lot more work nas been put into them than into theii plainer neighbours. Moreover, thej reel they are getting better value for their money. They forget that the machine can make ornament and that they are judging machine-made furnL ture from the viewpoint of the handmade. There are some who even regard the sale of plain furniture as something of a racket, thinking that it should sell at lower prices than the decorated pieces. This is a fallacy. Half the decorating and staining of cheap furniture is not for beauty’s sake, but to cover up poor workmanship and defective material. A piece of plain, light-stained oak furniture must be made well and of good material, because a fault can easily be detected. On the other hand, it is usually exceedingly difficult to discover defects ’ under applied ornament or thick varnish.

The present modern style is the result of public demand which has led furniture manufacturers gradually to alter and modify their designs. Startling innovations are not often acceptable to the general public. For example, bent steel-tubing furniture has been on the market for many years, but has found a place in comparatively few New Zealand homes. Manufacturers will certainly experiment with new materials: laminated wood is already in use, plastics may prove popular. They will, however, be intro, duced gradually, and must be in keeping with the movement for simpler design, greater comfort, and an increased regard for hygiene. .7. . Between the term modern and modernistic is a wide gulf. Under the heading of modern, many flashy pieces

of furniture are placed on the market. Crazy shapes in book-cases, ornate displays of mirror and glass, and pieces that are almost useless for the purpose for which they are designed are to be found in many homes and showrooms. To distinguish between the modern and the modernistic, consider the clock with a square face and studs instead of figures. Such a clock is modernistic. The round face of the clock is still the natural shape because the hands continue to move in a circle, and the studs are not an improvement on figures, for a child would probably be unable to tell the time without the help of the numbers. New design is only necessary when there is a new need, a new material, or a new method of construction.

The future of furniture design is a bright one. As a result of the war, manufacturers have gained 7 considerable knowledge of plywoods, plastics, and glass, and their use in furniture will certainly be investigated. It is quite feasible that chairs may he made coin.

pletcly of plastics, cast and moulded in one piece. The well-known Perspex lias already been used for furniture, and may become a popular material in the future. . It is not easy to lay down hard and fast rules for good furniture design. Suitability for the purpose and comfort are the two main considerations. The third point—appearancedepends on these two and on public demand. Tastes vary. Some people prefer period styles; others prefer different types in different rooms. Many a home has a functional kitchen and a period dining room. In any style good and bad design may be found. The individual buyer will choose that style which appeals to him most; but he should make sure that the design is good. After all, he will be living with the furniture day in and day out for the rest of his life. It must please his eye and meet his desire for comfort and efficiency. Moreover, his friends will judge his taste largely by the appearance of his home, and that is always an important consideration.