Category: The Anarchist’s Design Book

I don’t often write about current events – Wait! Wait – this isn’t about the election. I swear on a stack of Roubos that I will never write about that. This blog is a safe place.

What I’m writing about is a recent story in The New York Times about furniture styles headlined: “Why Won’t Midcentury Design Die?” Here’s a link to original story (no guarantee that they will let you read it, I’m afraid).

The story begins:

In 1998, The New York Times noted a new design trend. Cool creative types were tossing aside their thrift store décor in favor of midcentury modern. Out went the funky votive candles and wrought-iron beds, and in came the clean-lined furniture of Arne Jacobsen, Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Florence Knoll. The look’s adherents were labeled “Generation Wallpaper,” after the magazine.

For some reason, time stopped.

Nearly two decades later, midcentury modern remains the rage. If anything, it’s even more popular. Flip through a shelter magazine, scroll on 1stdibs.com or shop at a mass retailer like CB2 or West Elm, and it’s all variations on a spiky-legged-chair-and-Tulip-table theme.

Art Nouveau, 1920s Spanish and shabby chic were all looks that the cognoscenti embraced at one time or another, but never for this long. It’s as if the mechanism that refreshes cultural trends every few years has developed a glitch.

The writer then interviews editors of shelter magazines, sellers of furniture, gallery owners and interior designers about why this has happened and what they think of it. Two typical comments:

DAVID ALHADEFF, owner, the Future Perfect: “I’m completely over it. I roll my eyes. Placing another Womb chair in the corner of the bedroom is easy and a real cop-out, frankly. Designers and architects should know better at this point. Oh, my gosh. Enough!”

MICHAEL BOODRO: “Your eye does get bored. Twenty years ago, when midcentury was first being discovered, you could do a straight interior, and that was exciting. People want to go beyond the expected. You don’t have to show the Florence Knoll sofa in nubby beige like she did.”

I read the whole piece, of course. And I was both nauseated and thrilled. Not by the photos of midcentury pieces or the comments of the interior designers. I was instead deeply affected by the word that rarely gets discussed when talking about interior design. And that’s “waste.”

Interior designers thrive on change because it gives them work. Someone wealthy wants to redo their brownstone. They call an interior designer, who then gets to go shopping (and, perhaps, employ some makers), guts the rooms and installs the new stuff. And the scene repeats itself every so often.

This cycle of destruction and redecorating used to be reserved only for the rich. But with IKEA and other contemporary manufacturers, we can all act this way, throw our old stuff to the curb and redecorate with new stuff, which will last five or six years at most. (Rinse and repeat.)

But what happens where a particular style, such as midcentury, gets stuck in the public consciousness? What if people don’t want to throw out their Eames fiberglass chairs or their tulip tables? What if they become illogically attached to their Hans Wegner chairs. Or Mid Century Mobler?

If you have read “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” then you know what I hope will happen. Furniture will become like craft beer, cave-aged cheese or artisanal no-kill lederhosen. And there will be one more giant purge of our termite-barf furniture.

I’m too jaded to think this could really happen. But you have to have hope.

— Christopher Schwarz

If I had to guess, I’d say my wife’s favorite projects of mine are the coffins I built for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” One coffin ended up at Raney Nelson’s place (it’s where he sleeps, I think). One ended up on the wall in our TV room and holds my vinyl records. And the third is in the basement and is trotted out for Halloween.

Lucy, my wife, adores Halloween.

Building a coffin is great fun, whether you are making it for yourself and your final remains (as I did), to use as a liquor cabinet/vinyl record cabinet or yard decoration.

For fun, here’s the chapter on building a kerf-bent coffin from “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” It’s in pdf format. No DRM or any garbage. Just something fun to read and try.

coffin_chapter_adb

— Christopher Schwarz

Many woodworkers avoid chairmaking for the joinery, the angles, the special tools required or the materials (green, rived stock?). And when it comes to designing a chair, even experienced woodworkers are hesitant to give it a shot because they are afraid they will produce a buttocks-torture device instead of a comfortable chair.

Producing a comfortable chair is the combination of many factors, but all of them are easily controllable. In my short 13 years as an amateur chairmaker and designer, here are some of the design details that I think are overlooked.

The Saddle
Many first-time chairmakers carve the seat so deep you could bake a Bundt cake in it. I’ve seen saddles that are 1” deep and so dramatically shaped that they would look at home on a Klingon battle cruiser.

A little saddling (3/8” or so) is nice and it makes the seat appear to flow. But you can get away with little or no saddling and make a perfectly comfortable chair.

The trick – in my experience – is to design the chair so the front edge of the seat doesn’t bite into the sitter’s thighs. You can do this several ways.

No. 1: Shorten the legs a bit so the sitter’s feet rest flat on the floor and their thighs are just slightly above the front edge of the seat. Many shorter people hate factory chairs because the front edge of the seat restricts the blood flow after a few minutes.

Just like with a table, it’s easy to make it too high. But making it a little lower than typical has zero downsides.

No. 2: Take a jack plane and round off the front edge of the seat. You can also do this with a spokeshave – hollowing out two areas for the thighs. This five-minute operation creates the illusion of a saddle and increases the comfort.

The Back Legs
The least comfortable chairs I’ve sat in had a seat that was parallel to the floor. It makes the sitter feel like she is being pitched forward.

I like to have the seat drop 1” (at least) from the front edge of the seat to the back edge. I achieve this by cutting the back legs shorter. Cutting the back legs also has the benefit of angling the back of the chair backward, increasing the comfort.

Don’t over-do it. After removing 1-1/2”, it will start to feel weird. A good way to experiment with this is to prop up the front legs on a 1”-thick scrap and sit in the chair.

The Angle & Height of the Back
The backrest doesn’t have to be bored at a reclining angle. You can bore the backrest at 90° and use the fact that the back legs are shorter to make the chair comfortable. However, I do like to recline the back a few degrees back (once you get into chairmaking you’ll find that all the angles are as easy as 90°).

What I have found to be quite critical is the height of the crest rail or backrest. In general, lower seems to be better. Once you put something above the shoulder blades, the lumbar seems to suffer.

You can design a chair that has a high backrest, but I think it’s best to also have something below as well for the lumbar (think Jennie Alexander’s chair).

About the Chair Above
Roy Underhill made the chair in the photo at the top of this entry. It’s a reproduction of a chair we both saw at Stratford-upon-Avon last summer. To the eye, it looks uncomfortable. The seat is flat. The arms and seat height are lower than a typical modern chair. And the area created by the arms seems like a tight fit (it is for large people).

But the chair is remarkably comfortable. And, if you watch the current season of “The Woodwright’s Shop,” you’ll see how it’s dirt simple to build.

— Christopher Schwarz