we just had a new Ikea implanted in our neighbourhood. (went from having the
smallest Ikea in Canada to having the largest: completely ignoring
the community desires (nothing like having a 3 story wall of an ikea
across the residential street from your small home)
It was deeply depressing listening and watching the local media yammer on
and on about the “Ikea quality” and “design aesthetic” I don’t think they’d
know good furniture or quality if it came up and whacked them between the eyes.
Is Ikea actually Contemporary? or simply Contemptible? Contemptuous?
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Ah, no. All furniture was contemporary in its time, and not all furniture suffers from being a temporary con.
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Ikea is for college kids, people with roommates, nomad kids who bounce around from place to place trying to find that perfect apartment…. that sort of thing…. There is Ikea furniture in my home, bought ten years ago…. When I was one of those people. Time to work wood is all that is keeping it from being replaced already. It has its place in our consumer driven world and permanence is just not it. I dont encourage Ikea, but I also understand how it helps some folks ” get a place of their own ” away from mom and dad and not have to have milk crates and lawn chairs for furniture. I am 33 now, I work away from home for days on end, and at some point my tables and bookcases will be replaced by things built by my own tools, and not out of a flat packed box.
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I feel the same about pop music. Pop it’s here and pop it’s gone. Fun stuff.
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Art Carpenter, Sam Maloof, Tage Frid, George Nakashima, Wendell Castle, to name a few who were “contemporary” not long ago, all made stuff I’d rather live with than the kind of piece in the above picture.
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The piece above was contemporary in 1750.
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I agree. These men where original geniuses, not merely replicators of past craftsmen. To copy is easy, to think for yourself – tough.
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Jonathan : They may not know good furniture or quality, but they know what they like. So do all of IKEAs many customers, and, indeed, RETURN customers. Are we so far down the rabbit hole that we refuse to acknowledge that people who buy particleboard furniture aren’t stupid or misled, they simply have different priorities and want different things from their furniture than we do?
As for Con-Temporary, certainly a lot of the particleboard fare found in stores today is a lot less durable than what we, as woodworkers, might appreciate. The Con I think, is less fitting. I’ve met a lot of people who buy cheap furniture and almost none of them were stupid. People refresh their furniture with the decorating these days : permanence is not necessarily their goal. Most people don’t want out of their furniture what we want. If the IKEA furniture weren’t living up to their expectations, how do you really suppose IKEA would be doing so well?
While we often see poorly executed particleboard realizations of contemporary and modern furniture designs, it’s also worth bearing in mind there are also more serious craftsmen working in that style, no reason to assume the style need must be linked to poor construction, nor to impugn a piece of furniture merely because it doesn’t look like it was designed when wigs on men were fashionable.
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intriguing as “the founding phrase for his next book” …
‘con’ as ‘against’?
or ‘con’ as ‘with’?
or ‘con’ as ‘scam’?
… curiouser and curiouser – fascinating this language of ours
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Rose,
I’ve lost your email. Have new hones I’m having quarried that I think you might be interested in. Howard, theperfectedge.com
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I’ve no doubt that in 1600, 1700, 1800, etc., there was plenty of poorly built contemporaneous furniture. It just didn’t last long enough for us to cast aspersions thereupon.
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Not sure how this turned into an Ikea pile on. I will defend Ikea in that they do not pretend to be something else. Unlike the ‘fine’ furniture stores I have visited in the past three months looking for end tables. Seeing prices on absolute crap that you find on legitimate antiques is duplicitous and figuratively nauseating. After finding squat in the mid-level stores, I went upscale only to find the same to a slightly lesser degree. Who came up with the idea to dovetail particle board?
I’ve come to the conclusion that the quality stuff is used, or in the exclusive stores. I visited several extremely upscale galleries in the Chicago Loop; they had some really nice stuff quality wise.
I’m not saying there are no good quality stick goods, but I am saying the selection is rather slim.
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I hear what you are saying. My wife and I decided a long time ago the same thing. We ended up buying a lot of antique furniture. It was fun in those days before eBay. I loved going to auction viewings and the actual auction was a buzz in itself.
I became interested in the furniture itself and that is how I became a woodworker.
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Must admit that my Ikea ‘pile on’ is somewhat tied to an earlier post of Chris’ that I had
read a few minutes before, coupled with the frustration at the new store in our
neighbourhood. Might also be tied to the fact that the Ikea entertainment unit that
my wife insisted we buy (because she wisely knew that I wouldn’t have time to make one myself)
developed scratches within 5 days of purchase, and now 4 years on, the shelves are
so warped it defies belief.
I think my biggest problem is that Ikea’s driving things down, rather than raising the bar.
Imagine the impact of a retailer with some impact saying “yes, it now costs $15 more
because it will last longer, and you won’t throw it in a landfill in 5 years ”
rather than “now $15 cheaper because the veneer is now sprayed on, rather than
being real wood veneer”
And while I’m at it, I may as well hope for world peace. 🙁
Back to making my version of the American Trestle table from an old
issue of Woodworking: Happy New Year everyone.
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I was flipping through a first edition on the a shelf in a private library full of extraordinary first editions and stumbled on this, excerpted from “The farmer’s and mechanic’s practical architect; and guide in rural economy” (Hammond, James H., 1858); photo snapped from the book: http://bit.ly/u18qMQ
(not sure if the link will work here, but pretty sure an image won’t. Note, the reference in this blog post links back here, so if you’re tempted to see what I’m referring to on what Chris wrote on the subject, just scroll up, it’ll save you the circular linking!)
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One thing I’ll say for cheap chipboard furniture is that, as it falls to pieces, it does test your ingenuity in finding new ways of putting it back together. A pair of flat-packed bookcases I bought 20 years ago have been reassembled, very usefully, first as a baby’s changing table and now as a TV-stand-and-dog-house combo. The transformations would not have been so easy had it been quality stuff!
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Piffle and fiddlesticks. My house is full of some old vintage stuff, some old restored stuff, some hand made stuff, some bought stuff from other craftspeople and some ready made stuff. It all depends on the need and how much money we could afford at the time. Friends of ours are Korean and their furniture selection reflects their cultural view. The Shakers built furniture that reflected their particular philosophy and needs. And so on. If you like classical Roman or Greek influences, go for it. If you like Greene & Greene, the same. If Persia is your cuppa, drink it up.
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Yeah, Horses for Courses I say. One man’s treasure is another mans Junk.
I don’t have a Beef with Ikea per se. I see them responding to a market demand and they fill the gap perfectly.
My problem is that the demandf for cheaper goods has led to non durable goods. Some could argue it is planned obselesance. Or simply building to a price. Using non durable components.
Either way, the drive for this binds us to standardised components and dimensions which in turn can lead us to standardised and bland designs. A scan of all the McMansions in Sydney show all dimensions based around standard lumber lengths and board size to minimise construction scrap, maximise space and minimise cost. But a bland house. Will they last as long as a double brick house? Time will tell but the initial signs are not great.
My Personal course for Anarchism is to repel the notion that Bang for Buck furniture is better than something that is designed in a timeless manner, and made to last time.
But as I said before, Horses for Course.
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Good furniture like good tools tend to persist. It doesn’t mean they’re more comfortable though!
Amen!
we just had a new Ikea implanted in our neighbourhood. (went from having the
smallest Ikea in Canada to having the largest: completely ignoring
the community desires (nothing like having a 3 story wall of an ikea
across the residential street from your small home)
It was deeply depressing listening and watching the local media yammer on
and on about the “Ikea quality” and “design aesthetic” I don’t think they’d
know good furniture or quality if it came up and whacked them between the eyes.
Is Ikea actually Contemporary? or simply Contemptible? Contemptuous?
Ah, no. All furniture was contemporary in its time, and not all furniture suffers from being a temporary con.
Ikea is for college kids, people with roommates, nomad kids who bounce around from place to place trying to find that perfect apartment…. that sort of thing…. There is Ikea furniture in my home, bought ten years ago…. When I was one of those people. Time to work wood is all that is keeping it from being replaced already. It has its place in our consumer driven world and permanence is just not it. I dont encourage Ikea, but I also understand how it helps some folks ” get a place of their own ” away from mom and dad and not have to have milk crates and lawn chairs for furniture. I am 33 now, I work away from home for days on end, and at some point my tables and bookcases will be replaced by things built by my own tools, and not out of a flat packed box.
I feel the same about pop music. Pop it’s here and pop it’s gone. Fun stuff.
Art Carpenter, Sam Maloof, Tage Frid, George Nakashima, Wendell Castle, to name a few who were “contemporary” not long ago, all made stuff I’d rather live with than the kind of piece in the above picture.
The piece above was contemporary in 1750.
I agree. These men where original geniuses, not merely replicators of past craftsmen. To copy is easy, to think for yourself – tough.
Jonathan : They may not know good furniture or quality, but they know what they like. So do all of IKEAs many customers, and, indeed, RETURN customers. Are we so far down the rabbit hole that we refuse to acknowledge that people who buy particleboard furniture aren’t stupid or misled, they simply have different priorities and want different things from their furniture than we do?
As for Con-Temporary, certainly a lot of the particleboard fare found in stores today is a lot less durable than what we, as woodworkers, might appreciate. The Con I think, is less fitting. I’ve met a lot of people who buy cheap furniture and almost none of them were stupid. People refresh their furniture with the decorating these days : permanence is not necessarily their goal. Most people don’t want out of their furniture what we want. If the IKEA furniture weren’t living up to their expectations, how do you really suppose IKEA would be doing so well?
While we often see poorly executed particleboard realizations of contemporary and modern furniture designs, it’s also worth bearing in mind there are also more serious craftsmen working in that style, no reason to assume the style need must be linked to poor construction, nor to impugn a piece of furniture merely because it doesn’t look like it was designed when wigs on men were fashionable.
intriguing as “the founding phrase for his next book” …
‘con’ as ‘against’?
or ‘con’ as ‘with’?
or ‘con’ as ‘scam’?
… curiouser and curiouser – fascinating this language of ours
Rose,
I’ve lost your email. Have new hones I’m having quarried that I think you might be interested in. Howard, theperfectedge.com
I’ve no doubt that in 1600, 1700, 1800, etc., there was plenty of poorly built contemporaneous furniture. It just didn’t last long enough for us to cast aspersions thereupon.
Not sure how this turned into an Ikea pile on. I will defend Ikea in that they do not pretend to be something else. Unlike the ‘fine’ furniture stores I have visited in the past three months looking for end tables. Seeing prices on absolute crap that you find on legitimate antiques is duplicitous and figuratively nauseating. After finding squat in the mid-level stores, I went upscale only to find the same to a slightly lesser degree. Who came up with the idea to dovetail particle board?
I’ve come to the conclusion that the quality stuff is used, or in the exclusive stores. I visited several extremely upscale galleries in the Chicago Loop; they had some really nice stuff quality wise.
I’m not saying there are no good quality stick goods, but I am saying the selection is rather slim.
I hear what you are saying. My wife and I decided a long time ago the same thing. We ended up buying a lot of antique furniture. It was fun in those days before eBay. I loved going to auction viewings and the actual auction was a buzz in itself.
I became interested in the furniture itself and that is how I became a woodworker.
Must admit that my Ikea ‘pile on’ is somewhat tied to an earlier post of Chris’ that I had
read a few minutes before, coupled with the frustration at the new store in our
neighbourhood. Might also be tied to the fact that the Ikea entertainment unit that
my wife insisted we buy (because she wisely knew that I wouldn’t have time to make one myself)
developed scratches within 5 days of purchase, and now 4 years on, the shelves are
so warped it defies belief.
I think my biggest problem is that Ikea’s driving things down, rather than raising the bar.
Imagine the impact of a retailer with some impact saying “yes, it now costs $15 more
because it will last longer, and you won’t throw it in a landfill in 5 years ”
rather than “now $15 cheaper because the veneer is now sprayed on, rather than
being real wood veneer”
And while I’m at it, I may as well hope for world peace. 🙁
Back to making my version of the American Trestle table from an old
issue of Woodworking: Happy New Year everyone.
I was flipping through a first edition on the a shelf in a private library full of extraordinary first editions and stumbled on this, excerpted from “The farmer’s and mechanic’s practical architect; and guide in rural economy” (Hammond, James H., 1858); photo snapped from the book: http://bit.ly/u18qMQ
(not sure if the link will work here, but pretty sure an image won’t. Note, the reference in this blog post links back here, so if you’re tempted to see what I’m referring to on what Chris wrote on the subject, just scroll up, it’ll save you the circular linking!)
One thing I’ll say for cheap chipboard furniture is that, as it falls to pieces, it does test your ingenuity in finding new ways of putting it back together. A pair of flat-packed bookcases I bought 20 years ago have been reassembled, very usefully, first as a baby’s changing table and now as a TV-stand-and-dog-house combo. The transformations would not have been so easy had it been quality stuff!
Piffle and fiddlesticks. My house is full of some old vintage stuff, some old restored stuff, some hand made stuff, some bought stuff from other craftspeople and some ready made stuff. It all depends on the need and how much money we could afford at the time. Friends of ours are Korean and their furniture selection reflects their cultural view. The Shakers built furniture that reflected their particular philosophy and needs. And so on. If you like classical Roman or Greek influences, go for it. If you like Greene & Greene, the same. If Persia is your cuppa, drink it up.
Yeah, Horses for Courses I say. One man’s treasure is another mans Junk.
I don’t have a Beef with Ikea per se. I see them responding to a market demand and they fill the gap perfectly.
My problem is that the demandf for cheaper goods has led to non durable goods. Some could argue it is planned obselesance. Or simply building to a price. Using non durable components.
Either way, the drive for this binds us to standardised components and dimensions which in turn can lead us to standardised and bland designs. A scan of all the McMansions in Sydney show all dimensions based around standard lumber lengths and board size to minimise construction scrap, maximise space and minimise cost. But a bland house. Will they last as long as a double brick house? Time will tell but the initial signs are not great.
My Personal course for Anarchism is to repel the notion that Bang for Buck furniture is better than something that is designed in a timeless manner, and made to last time.
But as I said before, Horses for Course.
Good furniture like good tools tend to persist. It doesn’t mean they’re more comfortable though!