Furniture History

A history of furniture. John Morely documents the aesthetics of furniture, its social and cultural context, the sequence of styles - from Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman through Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and onwards - and the individual touches of craftsmen or designers used to give it character.

An Illustrated Guide to Furniture History provides upper-level students and instructors with an alternative visual analytical approach to learning about furniture history from Antiquity to Postmodernism. Following an immersive teaching model, it presents a Nine-Step Methodology to help students strengthen their visual literacy and quickly acquire subject area knowledge. Moving chronologically through key periods in furniture history and interior design, such as the Renaissance, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and Modernism, it traverses Europe to America to present a comprehensive foundational guide to the history of furniture design. Part I addresses furniture within the context of the built environment, with chapters exploring the historical perspective, construction principles, and the categorization of furniture. In Part II, the author visually depicts the structural organization of the methodological process, a three-category framework: History, Aesthetics, and Visual Notes. The chapters in this part prepare the reader for the visual analysis that will occur in the final section of the book. The book is lavishly illustrated in full color with over 300 images to reinforce visual learning and notation. A must-have reference and study guide for students in industrial and product design, interior design, and architecture.

Measured Drawings for 18 classic pieces.

"Rich in information ... sharp in perception."-The Times Educational Supplement

Publisher Description

Neat Pieces is a detailed, extensively illustrated survey of the major forms and makers of the "plain style" of furniture made and used by Georgians in the 1800s. Simply designed, solidly constructed of local woods, and usually unadorned, such pieces were used daily by their owners for storage, sleeping, eating, and more. Today, this furniture is read by historians, folklorists, and other experts for clues into a past way of life. It is also prized by museums, antiques dealers and auction houses, and furniture appraisers, collectors, and makers. Neat Pieces first appeared as the companion volume to the Atlanta History Center's seminal 1983 exhibit of the same name. The exhibit featured 126 exemplary pieces of furniture, including chairs, tables, huntboards, washstands, and candlestands. Each of them is described and illustrated in this book. Photographs in the original edition of Neat Pieces were black-and-white; here they are color. A new foreword by Deanne Levison looks at related publications and exhibits of the subsequent two decades. The introduction, by William W. Griffin, provides information on furniture forms, nomenclature, and finishes. Also included in the book is a list of more than twelve hundred nineteenth-century Georgia furniture craftsmen, with key details of their lives and work. 126 exemplary pieces of furniture (including chairs, tables, huntboards, washstands, and candlestands) 172 color photographs, 17 black-and-white photographs Information on furniture forms, nomenclature, and finishes Details about more than twelve hundred nineteenth-century Georgia furniture craftsmen

While all but gone today, Jamestown's furniture industry was once the second-largest producer of furniture in the United States. Manufacturing boomed from 1816, when William Breed and Royal Keyes opened their shops, to the 1920s, when Jamestown was still one of the top wood furniture producers in the country. In the nineteenth century, the thriving railroad industry allowed Jamestown's quality creations to be distributed nationwide. After the Civil War, an influx of Swedish immigrants brought their craftsmanship and skills to Jamestown, forming Morgan Manufacturing, Empire Furniture Company and many others. Then, their pieces were valued for quality and durability; today, they're coveted by collectors as beautiful antiques. Local expert Clarence Carlson uncovers the fascinating story of Jamestown furniture.

Lean Logic is David Fleming's masterpiece, the product of more than thirty years' work and a testament to the creative brilliance of one of Britain's most important intellectuals. A dictionary unlike any other, it leads readers through Fleming's stimulating exploration of fields as diverse as culture, history, science, art, logic, ethics, myth, economics, and anthropology, being made up of four hundred and four engaging essay-entries covering topics such as Boredom, Community, Debt, Growth, Harmless Lunatics, Land, Lean Thinking, Nanotechnology, Play, Religion, Spirit, Trust, and Utopia. The threads running through every entry are Fleming's deft and original analysis of how our present market-based economy is destroying the very foundations--ecological, economic, and cultural-- on which it depends, and his core focus: a compelling, grounded vision for a cohesive society that might weather the consequences. A society that provides a satisfying, culturally-rich context for lives well lived, in an economy not reliant on the impossible promise of eternal economic growth. A society worth living in. Worth fighting for. Worth contributing to. The beauty of the dictionary format is that it allows Fleming to draw connections without detracting from his in-depth exploration of each topic. Each entry carries intriguing links to other entries, inviting the enchanted reader to break free of the imposed order of a conventional book, starting where she will and following the links in the order of her choosing. In combination with Fleming's refreshing writing style and good-natured humor, it also creates a book perfectly suited to dipping in and out. The decades Fleming spent honing his life's work are evident in the lightness and mastery with which Lean Logic draws on an incredible wealth of cultural and historical learning--from Whitman to Whitefield, Dickens to Daly, Kropotkin to Kafka, Keats to Kuhn, Oakeshott to Ostrom, Jung to Jensen, Machiavelli to Mumford, Mauss to Mandelbrot, Leopold to Lakatos, Polanyi to Putnam, Nietzsche to Næss, Keynes to Kumar, Scruton to Shiva, Thoreau to Toynbee, Rabelais to Rogers, Shakespeare to Schumacher, Locke to Lovelock, Homer to Homer-Dixon--in demonstrating that many of the principles it commends have a track-record of success long pre-dating our current society. Fleming acknowledges, with honesty, the challenges ahead, but rather than inducing despair, Lean Logic is rare in its ability to inspire optimism in the creativity and intelligence of humans to nurse our ecology back to health; to rediscover the importance of place and play, of reciprocity and resilience, and of community and culture. ------ Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure could be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has also selected and edited one of the potential pathways through the dictionary to create a second, stand-alone volume, Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy. The content, rare insights, and uniquely enjoyable writing style remain Fleming's, but presented at a more accessible paperback-length and in conventional read-it-front-to-back format.