At the turn of the century marks a wave of change. Although between 1800 and 1900 shows the biggest wave of change not only as a big as the whole world, but also as small as the home-front. Within just a hundred years sofa design shifted from being artistic to functional; especially with the influence of the industrial revolution.
“The earliest sofas apparently were made in Philadelphia, which fifty years before the Declaration of Independence.” However, our first look at sofa design that really represents American as a new nation beings with the American Federal style. Now that the country was no longer under the rule of England, the style was make better of the “luxurious and pompous scale of living that mirrored London.” With this in mind certain features were taken and replicated such as rich wood colors like mahogany. According to The Story of American Furniture, sofas were made with walnut cabriole feet and legs with a back that was a “cyma curve higher at the center than at the ends, and the arms flared outward like those of a wing chair.”
One designer who is most infamous for American Federal sofa design, and other designs as well, is Duncan Phyfe. He began his career as a cabinetmaker apprentice shortly after immigrating to America from Scotland just twenty years after the Declaration of Independence. However, he became famous for his work from his neoclassical style furniture pieces. Thus formed the Duncan Phyfe sofa (See Figure 1). As explained in Architecture and Interior Design from the 19th Century, an Integrated History:
“Sofas have square or curving backs and slender, tapering quadrangular or circular legs. Upholstery is stuffed with horsehair, straw and other materials, but no springs, resulting in a st...
... middle of paper ...
...s, David M. Furniture of the American arts and crafts movement: Stickley and Roycroft mission oak. New York, N.Y.: New American Library, 1981.
Duncan, Alastair. Art nouveau furniture. New York: C.N. Potter:, 1982.
Harwood, Buie, and Bridget May. Architecture and interior design from the 19th century: an integrated history, volume 2. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011.
Hillstrom, Kevin. Industrial revolution in America. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2007.
Holloway, Edward Stratton. American furniture and decoration, colonial and federal,. Philadelphia & London: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1928.
Ormsbee, Thomas H. The story of American furniture, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934.
Richey, Tin A. 2000. "Major Arts & Crafts Furniture Manufacturers." Antiques & Collecting Magazine 105, no. 9: 38. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 21, 2014).
Eck, Susan. "The Sculpture Plan by Karl Bitter, Director of Sculpture." Pan American Exposition: Buffalo 1901. (http://panam1901.bfn.org/documents/sculptureplan.html).
The furniture represents the Birling families longing for status. In the early 1900s social status was virtually everything. This was because socialism dominated the whole of the United Kingdom. The vertical social ladder of status was what controlled who was a "somebody" and who was a "nobody".
Queen Anne architecture can not be defined easily. It's architectural style has many different characteristics. In this paper, I will show how the Queen Anne style evolved from the architecture that was common during the reign of Queen Anne herself and also show how it evolved in America in the late 1800's during the Industrial Revolution. I will then show how the Queen Anne style is incorporated into today's architectural design.
Benjamin, Walter, and J. A. Underwood. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
William H. Pierson, Jr., American Buildings and Their Architects: Technology and the Picturesque, (Doubleday & Company, Inc.), 167.
Dell Upton is a historian and renowned professor of architecture and Urbanism at the University of California. He has published several books on architecture; one of them is “Architecture in the United States”, published in 1998. In this book, Upton analyzes the architecture of the United States in different aspects, such as nature, money and art, thus depicting the great variety in architectural forms, and how throughout the decades, different interests have lead communities to different ways of building, different purposes and materials, thus reflecting their way of thinking and their relationship with the environment. By exploring so many different architectural styles, Upton reveals the great diversity and richness that has always, and continues to characterize American architecture.
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), pp. 176-185. (College Art Association), accessed November 17, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3049368.
Born shortly after the end of the Civil War in 1867, Wright grew up mostly in Madison, WI. After college, he secured a position with the prestigious Chicago architectural firm Adler & Sullivan in 1887. A disagreement with Sullivan six years later, forced Wright to start his own firm. After he designed six other homes is when Wright started to come into his own permanent designs in architecture. He came to use repetitive design elements in his plans that included the open concept, fireplaces, glazed windows and doors and the use of organic materials that were incorporated into the homes. Some of these designs o...
...ver thrift study edition. mineola, new york, ny: Dover publications, 1995. 226., . . Print.
According to Demos, the consumer revolution offered choices for those who could afford the Philadelphia Chippendale chair. For example, "a well-to-do tobacco planter and his wife ...would explore new possibilities for furnishing and decorating their house" . This supports the idea of free choice and moving in a pattern supporting the idea of progress. A description of the Chippendale chair would include that it is hand carved by highly skilled journeymen cabinetmakers that have fashioned ornamentation out of mahogany wood. These craftsman have added a generously padded seat for comfort, with a hand carved S-shaped wide back that's tapered down to the seat. The chair measures 36"7/8 inches in height and the seat is 23"3/4 from the floor. The front legs of the chair are carved in a ball and claw design reflecting Chinese culture, which reflected the linear movement during this time approximately the year 1750, which demonstrated moving away from the modern classical period. The Philadelphia Chippendale chair clearly symbolizes the transformation from cyclical rhythm to linear rhythm.
3 In the Nature of Materials, 1887-1941: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright (Da Capo Paperback) by Henry Russell Hitchcock Da Capo Press (June 1975)
Pile, J. F., 2005. A History of Interior Design. 4th ed. Toronto: Laurence King Publishing.
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are two very prominent names in the field of architecture. Both architects had different ideas concerning the relationship between humans and the environment. Their architectural styles were a reflection of how each could facilitate the person and the physical environment. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, is considered one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture and Le Corbusier s Villa Savoye helped define the progression that modern architecture was to take in the 20th Century. Both men are very fascinating and have strongly influenced my personal taste for modern architecture. Although Wright and Corbusier each had different views on how to design a house, they also had similar beliefs. This paper is a comparison of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s and Le Corbusier ‘s viewpoints exhibited through their two prominent houses, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.
The world is developing every day and we continue to discover new and innovative ways to better our quality of life. A trend that everyone seems to be focused on is saving the environment, which is also known as sustainable living. Not only does this apply to our lifestyle and environment, but it also translates into design. Sustainable living is becoming more popular around the world and is a lifestyle using skillful and sensitive design. It eliminates negative environmental impact and requires renewable resources. We each have decided to research different furniture companies to broaden our knowledge of the innovative practices used in each company. Throughout our paper we will introduce each of our companies and the products and practices they use to produce sustainable furniture. Our research will show that sustainable furniture design is beneficial to consumers by allowing them to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle as their manufacturers develop innovative ways to make renewable furniture.
“When it comes to interior design styles, give yourself the permission to think outside the box. There are so many wonderful ways to define who you are by creating a magnificent living space. Allow yourself to be creative. Be stylish. And when I say outside the box, I don’t necessarily mean go crazy, I simply suggest you take some steps to create the type of home that you really want or that your client is asking you to create” (Yule 1). Looking into interior design there are many elements that contribute to the way people view the room or area, such as the color, flooring, furniture, fabrics, and accessories in every room. Within the following research paper, interior design will be discussed by the interior design styles, the effects of color, and the trends of bathrooms.