Since the beginning of the pandemic our dining tables have served as desks, meeting rooms, classrooms, baking benches and yet still remains a place we gather at the end of the day to unwind.

As we move into what will surely be a new way of life, the team at Mac & Wood have spend the last year diving deeper into the pivotal role dining tables now play in daily life. The new norm will see many of us needing a permeant space to work and play, and it must be flexible in purpose.

The average family dining table will play host to 572 conversations, 1,456 meals and 468 jokes – every year. Research commissioned by McCain, found more than a quarter described the dining table as the heart of their home.

For this very reason Mac & Wood has been committed to crafting beautiful bespoke tables, working closely with the customer to articulate exactly what is required for such a encompassing piece of furniture. For example the Dekton tables are pretty indestructible and amazingly versatile coming in an array of beautiful finishes and colours, which makes Dekton suitable for any space or room.

Dekton is made in a process that combines technologies from three different industries; glass, porcelain and quartz. This process lead to the development of a new production method called Particle Sintering Technology.

This process is like an accelerated version of the natural metamorphism that rocks and stone undergo when subjected to heat and pressure over thousands of years. To manufacture Dekton, Cosentino has reduced this process to four hours with extreme heat and pressure resulting in an entirely new ultra compact material. The press used in the ultra-compaction can bring 25,000 tons of pressure to bear.

As our work and social lives continue to migrate it is not only the functionality of our dining tables that will be redefined, the look and feelings they evolve will also become a large factor in our purchasing decisions. They will not only be a place for evening work but also need to be a place to socialise and relax. Duelling between office and sanctuary, with research showing nearly 44% of families are eating more meals together than ever before.

Why not explore Mac & Wood, to find the perfect bespoke frame and finish to reinvigorate your dining room table.

The post How Lockdown Has Affected The Way We Use Our Dining Tables appeared first on Mac&Wood.

What happens with our meeting tables on delivery day?

At Mac+Wood we love getting to see our expertly handmade furniture reach its final destination. Seeing the unique furniture we create go from carefully crafted design plan, to a touchable centrepiece, is what inspires us to keep creating. Last week we were able to deliver two of our larger bespoke meeting tables to a couple of great companies.

Delivery 1

Our first delivery was to the stylish new offices of BBD Perfect Storm, a modern advertising agency with a keen eye for the contemporary. They commissioned us to produce a Dekton office table in the sumptuous Trillium finish. Dekton tables come in a huge array of carefully created colours and patterns. The Dekton surface is a really exiting addition to the contemporary furniture scene. Our job was to find the right finish for the space and to pair it with the perfect frame to create a striking contemporary boardroom table. With our help BBD paired their Trillium finish with our brand new “X” frame design, in brushed stainless steel, to complete the industrial-chic look.

Having chosen their design, we handcrafted their centrepiece meeting room table and arrived outside their offices with only four flights of stairs between us the space. Our highly skilled team of installers assembled the sleek “X” frame in a matter of minutes, ready for the monolithic top to be installed. With our team of 6 getting a free gym class lifting the Dekton up the stairs, we successfully brought the table into the room where it will be used and admired.

To complete this impressive new boardroom table for BBD we mounted the top to the frame and stood back to enjoy a successful installation and beautiful table. Paired with our Hudson chairs it is the perfect example of stylish modern office furniture.

Delivery 2

For our second delivery of the day we dashed down to Fetch, a mobile agency based in the characterful Tea building. We had been commissioned to create a piece reclaimed wood furniture to be used as a boardroom/meeting room table for the team, complete with an AV unit so they could link up to the tech in the room, for meetings and creative sessions.

Our beautiful reclaimed wood tables come from wood that is sourced from a huge variety of locations and carefully selected to produce a characterful focal point for any room. Paired with our Signature frame it produces a sleek contemporary look that brings warmth to any room.

Our team installed this modern wood table in pride of place in the “Jammie Dodger” meeting room of Fetch. We hope that the style and substance of the table helps to inspire the ideas and innovations of those who use it in the future.

At Mac+Wood we look forward to making your contemporary furniture design ideas a reality, in the office, as part of the your modern home furniture, or anywhere you need a centrepiece that creates a statement.

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You need a table made tough for family life, you need a unique Mac+Wood Dekton table.

The revolutionary product Dekton launched in 2013. This completely inorganic substance is made from complex raw materials, used in glass, porcelain and quartz surface production. Before its launch the company that created it, Cosentino, invested $172 million into the new product, including 22,000 hours of research and development and the construction of a new state-of-the-art factory in Spain.

Dekton is a material with unique characteristics and seemingly endless applications from tables, countertops, flooring, siding, facades for both inside and outdoors.

Dekton is made in a process that combines technologies from three different industries; glass, porcelain and quartz. This process lead to the development of a new production method called Particle Sintering Technology.

This process is like an accelerated version of the natural metamorphism that rocks and stone undergo when subjected to heat and pressure over thousands of years. To manufacture Dekton, Cosentino has reduced this process to four hours with extreme heat and pressure resulting in an entirely new ultra compact material. The press used in the ultra-compaction can bring 25,000 tons of pressure to bear.

All of this highly scientific process has lead to a product with unique properties, which can best be taken advantage of in the form of a Dekton table.

The properties of a Dekton table that make it so useful fall into four categories.

Firstly, the table is non-porous and this means it is highly stain resistant. Hosting a party with a Dekton table? All those glass rings which could ruin another surface can be wiped away easily with no lasting marks, even the morning after.

In a video demonstration of the stain resistance of Dekton tables, they spray the table with a large X in red paint, dry it with a hair dryer and then remove it with little more than a cloth and water.

Secondly, the tables are highly UV resistant. Normally surfaces are affected by UV light and the colours become washed out and faded. However, a Dekton table will hold its colour permanently due to its UV resistance. This means the beautiful colour you spent time choosing from the myriad of options will really last.

Thirdly, Dekton tables are pretty indestructible. The enormous pressures Dekton tables are exposed to during production means that they can resist any scratch, abrasion, or mechanical attack. This makes them perfect for hard use and preparing food on, without fear of chips or scratches. In another demonstration of the Dekton table’s surface, the table is attacked with a screw driver and rather than scratch or chip the tool is repelled showing a few sparks in slow motion!

Finally, Dekton tables, like a good chef, can stand the heat. Dekton tables are completely noncombustible. They can be blowtorched and abused by pots and pans and never show a mark. Forget using pot stands or trivets, you can place anything hot on a Dekton table without worry. Dekton tables also resist temperature at the other end of the scale and are resistant to ice and thawing.

Dekton tables come in a wonderful array of carefully created colours and patterns. These colours make the surface of a Dekton table suited to any room and style. At MAC+WOOD we finish the job by creating the perfect bespoke frame to pair with the surface and style. We make these frames in any colour or in brushed steel and in any one of our beautiful designs.

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Home and passion project of veteran music-mogul James Perkins who happens to also moonlight as a restorer of historic houses, Aynhoe Park is a surreal carnival of rockstar chic, Palladian grandeur, and the plain outrageous. As in, there is literally a 12-foot taxidermied giraffe named Gerald suspended by giant silver balloons in The Orangery, (what’s The Orangery you ask? Read on my dear reader).

I had the pleasure of experiencing Aynhoe Park while attending a wedding last year, one of the principal events that sees people, champagne in hand, gawping at the otherworldly interior of the eccentric venue. Numbered amongst the attendees of past events are Mick Jagger, Christian Louboutin and Kate Moss to name a few – clearly I missed my chance to infiltrate the inner circle of timeless British music and fashion royalty – but all thoughts of lost opportunity were well and truly forgotten by the end of a wedding weekend spent in awe of Perkins’s collection of avant-garde curiosities. Without further ado, let me present some of my top picks of the luxury furniture and furnished luxuries of Aynhoe Park.

Patriotic Polar Bears

The Performer

Standing out amongst the vast collection of taxidermy present throughout the house and giving Gerald a run for his money for the winner of Most Memorable Stuffed Animal – are two polar bears, nameless as far as I’m aware, but what they lack in denomination they make up for in patriotism. Both sporting Union Jack torso-wear/capes, they cut a striking pose, sparing no expense on accessorising, complete with a top hat, British flying goggles and an admiral’s cap. Two testaments to James Perkin’s love for effortlessly blended grandiose quirkiness.

The Aviator

Hercules by James Perkins Studio

The Son of Zeus

Having “slain the beast”, the towering figure of Hercules leans on a club draped with the hide of the lion. One of the most iconic pieces of James’ collection, the sculpture is actually based on a much smaller marble version by one of the greatest Hellenic sculptors in the Fourth Century Bc, but the current incarnation, need I even bother saying it; of course stands at over ten-and-a-half-feet tall and has a golden clock around his neck and is holding a matching golden balloon behind his back. Demigod meets party-boy, Hercules is personal favourite of mine as well as being another well documented conversation starter at Aynhoe.

Hammered Copper Pendulum Chaise

But of course there’s luxury furniture made from copper

Would this really be a Mac+Wood post without mentioning copper luxury furniture at least once? No. Thought not. So feast your eyes on the latest burnished statement piece featured on our site (and in my opinion one of the most eye-catching). Hand crafted with highly polished materials and coated in a lustrous copper finish, the sculptural design making a striking and functional garden installation that can be hung from a tree or attached to a free-standing swing frame for interior use. If you’d like to read about more ingenious uses of copper furnishings, we wrote a whole article about it! /blog/copper-tables-in-london-bars-and-restarants/

Gerald

Gerald The Giraffe

And now for the star of our show, the one constant in this turbulent world, the giraffe, quite literally, above all others – Gerald. Not much is known about the inspiration behind his conception but at this point in its important to realise that at Aynhoe Park, too much “why?” will stop you from appreciating the wonder around every corner. Suspended by monumental glass balloons, Gerald lives exclusively in The Orangery, the principal wedding room. When he’s not officiating weddings, Gerald is enchanting children and adults alike with his fairytale appearance and generally making the world a brighter place.

Hats off to Mr Perkins for his tireless devotion to filling such a grand space with the weird, wonderful and original, it made for an unforgettable weekend as it has for so many others choosing to throw their party of parties there. To tell you more about Aynhoe Park would be to ruin the first-person experience of, well, all the above – so you’ll just have to go and see it for yourself!

https://aynhoepark.co.uk/

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As the curtains come down on another summer of blockbusters with plenty of both hits and misses making their way across the big-screen, we’ve decided it’s time to look beyond the star-studded casts and questionable reboots to celebrate a whole different class of talent. The unsung heroes of the film industry, the humble saviours of style, the beautiful set pieces responsible for a positively cult-like following of furniture geeks and movie nerds – the iconic interiors behind some of our favourite works of cinema!

From Iron Thrones to space-age swivel chairs, the furnishings and interiors seen in both mainstream and more obscure movies have often been overlooked as being, excuse the pun, simply part of the furniture. Today however we’re taking sides with our metaphorical army of art designers and set decorators who would condemn such a shameless oversight! Style choices in film are just as important to the end product as even the most show-stopping performance and that’s why Mac+Wood have decided to share with you our favourite pieces of furniture from a collection of our favourite and not-so-favourite films.

The Barcelona Chair in Tron: Legacy (2010)

A scene from Tron:Legacy (2010) featuring the future-esque Barcelona Chair

Though it was designed in 1992, the Barcelona Chair interestingly features in Tron: Legacy (2010) as a striking part of the ultra-futuristic decor exhibited in a digital-age, computer-generated world. If that doesn’t say timeless classic then we don’t know what does! Designed by Mies van der Rohe and also appearing in Bond: Spectre (2015), this chair is a perfect example of modernism design furniture and an enduring contribution to the world’s domestic landscape.

Dining Booths in Jack Rabbit Slim’s Diner

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) sets the stage for a dining booth fashioned out of a convertible 50’s car

Not strictly a piece of furniture – one, in the sense that it was built by the set designers of the cult classic Pulp Fiction (1994) and – two, we’ve never seen anything remotely resembling this in someone’s home before – but we couldn’t resist – look at that booth! Fashioned from vintage convertible cars as a nod to Elvis Presley’s Speedway (1968) and Howard Hawk’s Red Line 7000 (1965), the booths perfectly capture the 50’s feel of Quentin Tarantino’s fictional diner, the raucous Jack Rabbit Slims. Pastel upholstery and chrome fittings galore, this set-piece/aspirational purchase will have you doing the twist in no time.

Sequoia Table by BRABBU

Seen in 50 Shades of Grey (2015), the BRABBU Sequoia Centre Table makes a bold centrepiece

So we didn’t get a chance to see the film adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel 50 Shades of Grey (2015) but judging by the various sceptical reviews it seems like the hottest thing we missed out on was this Sequoia Centre coffee table. With a walnut root veneer to represent the passage of years of the towering Sequoia tree and complete with brass bark, this centrepiece absolutely steals the show. A mid-century furniture design inspired by the forces of nature.

Morpheus’s Red Leather Wingback

The Prince of sci-fi sits on his throne, the Red Leather Wingback Chesterfield-style chair in The Matrix (1999)

Looking up again towards the lofty heights of sci-fi iconicity, we find ourselves faced with a piece of 18^th Century furniture royalty, sat on by someone of even greater royalty in the sci-fi world, none other than The Matrix’s (1999) Morpheus. With characteristically deep buttoned upholstery, rolled arms and a nail head trim, the Wingback is a noble classic, gracing the floors of gentlemen’s clubs and luxury homes alike, the epitome of British style, elegance and class.

The Wave Coffee Table by Mousarris

A truly inspired piece, The Wave Coffee Table is based on a scene from Incecption (2010)

To round off our selection, we found this captivating limited edition piece by Greek designer Stelios Mousarris. Inspired by a memorable scene in the visually stunning sci-fi thriller Inception (2010) where a city is folded in on itself in a dream, this table was created with 3D-printing technology and is a remarkable render of the sequence in the film. Mesmerising and perfectly balanced despite its odd shape, the Wave Coffee Table just as much fan memorabilia as it is a place to stack your architecture books. Best of all, its made of a mixture of wood and steel – two of the most gorgeous building materials that we at Mac+Wood hold dear as our ranges are crafted from the very same.

The Droid Interactive Coffee Table by ALTAR Furniture

The Force is strong with this coffee table. An interactive masterpiece inspired by the one and only R2D2 from the incredible Star Wars saga

The purchase of all aspirational purchases, this coffee table comes from the minds of film and music inspired designers András Lacfi and Ernő Balogh, who own the quirky interiors/arts business; Altar. Its a triumphant celebration of all things Star Wars, not to mention the proverbial Holy Grail of our very own long-time fan and Mac+Wood Founder, Marcel Cowan. Combining interactivity, function and nostalgia, The Droid Interactive Coffee Table rolls on its own two wheels and features a mini slide-projector (picturing R2 in the Death Stars’ sewage), a flashlight, sounds, lighting programs, and a fully functional animated droid on the playfield.

So there you have it, our collection of weird and wonderful furniture featuring in and inspired by our selection of weird and wonderful films. It’s something we’re always on the search for – the eye-catching, the elegant and the bold. It’s what makes us Mac+Wood. For a thoughtfully and devotedly curated and source of trivia and on furniture in more of your favourite films, visit https://www.filmandfurniture.com/.

For more interior design pieces and pictures, why not visit the Mac+Wood Instagram or say hello on Facebook.

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There’s nothing more life-affirming than a wood shop in action. We love it, the smell of sawdust, the clunks of timber being worked on. Step inside the workshops of five men who changed the face of modern woodworking forever – and tell us you wouldn’t love a private tour of each of them.

George Nakashima: New Hope

 George Nakashima learned traditional Japanese joinery and hand tool work while in the confines of a Japanese internment camp in 1942. With the help of architect Antonin Raymond, he settled a year later in the aptly named New Hope, PA and built a compound of workshops which is now a National Historic Landmark.

Nakashima’s distinctly meditative process expressed a respect for each tree used on its journey to a new life. Today, a crew led by his daughter Mira continues Nakamara’s tradition of soulfully handcrafted work at the original workshop.

“There is little chance that peace can be achieved politically,” said Nakashima. It was his dream to create peace symbolically with his massive live-edge slab Peace Altars which are still being installed at spiritual centres around the world.

Hans Wegner: Serious Play

“We must play—but we must play seriously.” Hans Wegner

A walk through Wegner’s workshop at his creative peak would have revealed an overwhelming array of tiny chair prototypes in various stages of realization. A master of traditional methods of joinery such as finger joints and mortise and tenon joints, Wegner also stressed a loose, creative approach.

His time in the studio involved a lot of experimentation by means of physically manipulating the wood, creating new shapes informed by their materials. Continually engaged in perfecting, simplifying, then re-perfecting chairs, he’s responsible for over 500 unique chair designs.

Wendell Castle: Robot-Assisted Art Furniture

“A computer really has a mind of its own. It wants to make really smooth curves. I don’t want those kind of curves, so the only way I can keep that from happening is to scan my physical models.” Wendell Castle

Castle’s innovations began the art furniture movement as we know it, combining organic materials with resins into refined sculptural forms which, he insists, are still furniture. In the early 1960s he pioneered the “stacked lamination” technique of gluing layers of wood together, then carving it to create new possibilities for wooden forms.

He continues his work today in his upstate New York studio using a robot-assisted version of his original process. From Castle’s original sketch, a foam model is laser scanned. A large robot with a reach of 12 feet prints out 3D guides from the programmed “tool path” with which it cuts layers of wood to be stacked and glued, then hand-finished.

Wharton Esherick: Standing on Shape Alone

Wharton’s lyrically curving workshop is now a museum in rural Pennsylvania. Built in 1926, it’s full of natural shapes typical of the Arts and Crafts Movement, of which Wharton became a leader soon after WWII. He famously did away with excess surface decoration in his furniture, stating that “like sculpture, it should stand on shape alone.”

His most beloved tool was an axe, and the upper floor of his shop was once covered in packed earth to keep him from slipping while he swung his whole weight into creating these works. In 1956, he designed a new workshop in collaboration with his architect friend Louis Kahn. Wharton had to put his own stamp on the design by adding a slight curve to each of Khan’s proposed straight walls.

Henry O. Studley: His Mysterious Masterwork

Piano maker Henry O. Studley’s crowning achievements were his awe-inspiringly intricate Studley Tool Chest and workbench. Historians guess that since there was no sign of a workshop in his home, he must have built these marvels in the Poole Piano factory where he honed his skills from 1898-1919.

He inlaid mother of pearl, ivory, and ebony details into the cabinet (likely salvaged factory scraps), as well as symbols of his Masonic studies. The pieces are still the subject of much speculation and have been exhibited at the Smithsonian.

“He was the possessor of a set of tools that was the envy of his co-workers, all of them made by himself by hand and some of them beautifully inlaid with pearl and ivory, and which were always proudly exhibited by Mr. Studley to those who showed an interest.” from Henry Studley’s obituary.

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The Nelson Platform Bench

The Nelson Platform Bench is timeless in mid-century furniture design. You could spot its practical, slatted shape a mile away. It’s a visual representation of Modernist ideals – the unison of beauty and function – with pure-and-simple common sense built right in. Yes, we think it’s beautiful, but its sparse design is made for serious business: it can multitask as seating, shelving, or a table in all sorts of environments.

When you think of a public space, picture the seating. We’re prepared to bet all our sandwiches that the slotted outline of the Nelson Platform Bench leaps to mind. But where did this unassuming, hard-working, yet ubiquitous bit of furnishing come from?

Who’s George Nelson?

Probably one of the most innovative voices of the 20th century. The modernist post-war design world he helped to build was a sharp departure from the folksy Arts & Crafts movement preceding him. According to Nelson, his ideas came to him in “zaps”, shining a light of innovation upon his imagination as strong and instant as lightning. Nelson wrote several design books which are still gospel for many today: Tomorrow’s House, Problems of Design, and the 1977 classic How to See: Visual Adventures in a World God Never Made.

When did the bench come about?

Nelson designed the Platform Bench in 1945. He had his “zap” for the bench at a time when the country was just starting to support the idea of design as a worthwhile venture: supplies were no longer strictly rationed so factories began to produce non-essentials. But since the new post-war middle class still valued economy and efficiency as they moved toward suburban living, the cultural climate of America at that moment was perfectly poised to embrace Nelson’s sleek new design – whether folks were ready for it or not.

So it’s more about performing well than looking good? Sounds a bit austere.

Nelson’s design was functional, yes, but the beauty was in the functionality itself. This is one of the most well put-together benches you’ll ever sit on, and one where the designer paid close attention to the details. Case in point: Nelson originally drafted the Platform Bench as a seating solution for guests at his Fortune Magazine office. He used slats made of birch rather than solid panels, both to save on materials as well as to discourage guests from overstaying their welcome. Where he could have used steel, he used beautiful, traditional maple. It served the modernist aesthetic well because of its strength and its ability to be milled into a clean, flat line. Fun fact, the serious and svelte bench was also designed to serve as a platform for supporting modular storage cubes.

Is it still popular today?

My word, yes. You’ll see the Nelson Platform Bench (as well as many lower quality imitations) residing casually in a plethora of locations today – in malls, public parks, and homes. Its timeless design has become so ingrained in our everyday lives that it often goes unnoticed. But if you stumble upon one of Nelson’s original benches, it could earn you more than just points with your furniture-loving friends. Thanks to Nelson’s visionary design, the Platform Bench is as much a treasured piece in family homes as it is a hallmark of shared public space around the world.

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The best wood furniture is a combo of incredible style and stunning function. That’s what furniture design is all about – and that’s why we love it so much. So here’s a question for you: is it possible to achieve perfection in furniture design? The absolute apex of style and function? For most designers, creating the perfect design would be the ultimate quest. It’d only be slightly less exciting than finding the Holy Grail.

For members of the De Stijl design movement, achieving the perfect combination of style and function was their whole raison d’être. They become a powerful ancestor of modernism in furniture design – what was it about their ideas and their products that had such a lasting influence?

First things first. What was ‘De Stijl’?

Composition-C by Piet Mondrian

It’s Dutch for ‘the style’ and the name of a radical minimalist art movement founded in The Netherlands in 1917. Co-founder Piet Mondrian was probably its most famous member, but others include its other co-founder Theo van Doesburg, Gerrit Rietveld, Vilmus Huszar, J. J. P. Oud and Bart van der Leck.

Much of our modern love of open-plan living and geometric furniture comes straight out of the experiments of De Stijl. It was highly influential in furniture design, architecture, painting, sculpture and even literature – which is as well, because they advocated close collaboration between all art forms – and it inspired many well-known 20^th century designers, including Miles van der Rohe.

What’s Mondrian got to do with furniture?

De Stijl furniture looks like a Mondrian painting in three dimensions. If you know the famous paintings – the grids of black and white lines, with rectangles of red, blue and yellow – you’ll recognise Gerrit Rietveld’s famous 1918 wood chair, a perfect example with its rectangular red back and accents of yellow paint.

This sort of design was typical of De Stijl. Rietveld reduced his furniture designs down to the most simple forms, using pure geometric shapes, straight lines and circles, and stuck to a limited palette of black, white and primary colours.

Why was it considered so radical?

They rejected any attempt at representing visual reality as it seems and instead explored ideas of strict abstraction, what can be, using only straight lines and a limited palette of colour.

Counter Composition XIII by Theo Van Doesburg

They forced the designer to think about proportion, geometry and colour and achieve some kind of harmony. The result was a new simplicity of imagery, something that was revolutionary at a time when fussy still life paintings or landscapes were still very much the norm.

Are their chairs…actually comfortable?

Not massively! These pieces were experimental and sculptural. They were not primarily designed for relaxation, but as part of a wider idea of open-plan living. In these idealised spaces it was hoped there were more important things to do than just slump in a comfy wood chair all day. They were a bit elitist like that.

I like open-plan living rooms.

So did they – they were obsessed with them. Rietveld designed revolutionary houses with sliding doors and wide open rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows. In these rooms, his minimalist furniture was deliberately designed to ‘float in space’ and allow the viewer to look right through it to other parts of the rooms, unlike the heavy wooden Victorian furniture of yore which blocked sightlines and broke the space up.

Right. Where do I buy?

Well, we’ve got bad news for you there. Pieces sell at auction for tens of thousands of pounds, sometimes more. On the bright side, major museums such as the V&A in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York have important pieces in their collections.

The post De Stijl: Masters of Modernist Furniture Design appeared first on Mac&Wood.

Great wood furniture design is at the heart of what we do. You might say we’re aficionados. That’s why we’re launching a new blog series that pays homage to some of most iconic wood furniture designs of modern times. We’ll look at the pieces that innovated the home and office environment, moved the bar for design, and really walked the line between art and the everyday. These are the icons of wood furniture design.

The Eames Lounge Chair

“The chair of the century.”

In today’s blog we take a look at the Eames Lounge Chair. This icon of modern furniture design is so distinct, so well-known, that its form is a registered trademark. There are even examples of it in museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

But this fantastic piece of furniture is not just a design statement. The Eames Lounge Chair is still in production and still used in homes today. It was designed to be supremely comfortable, offering a much-needed respite from the daily grind of life.

Creators Charles and Ray Eames were known for their democratic, mass-produced, affordable pieces. This chair was their first luxury item. Despite that, its pared-down design consists simply of three curved rosewood veneer plywood shells: the headrest, the backrest and the seat.

As Charles Eames said,

The details are not the details; they make the product.

Why is it so iconic? For a start, just look at it. It’s a beautiful mix of old-school comfort and sleek modernism. It had familiar echoes of traditional design even when it was first made, and yet it was something totally new and fresh. Its modernist curved wooden elements rejected the fussy, decorative styles of the Victorian and Art Deco eras while its chrome feet spoke of an industrial age.

Secondly, it’s as comfortable as it is stylish. It’s incredibly inviting to sit on with its leather upholstery, reclining back, and body-hugging form. The rosewood veneer and black leather are a nod to the cosy, comforting world of English gentlemen’s clubs. Charles Eames famously said that he wanted it to have “the warm, receptive look of a well-used first-baseman’s mitt.”

Finally, it straddles the line between luxury and affordability. The Eameses struggled for many years to perfect a way of mass-producing the complex shapes involved in producing this chair, and they pioneered ways of bending plywood so it could be manufactured at a reasonable price. The original was half hand-crafted and half machine-made.

Ray and Charles Eames

Who made it? Husband and wife design power couple Charles and Ray Eames. Production on the chair began in 1956, but it took many years of trial and error to get the design to production stage. Herman Miller still manufacture the classic in their Michigan factory and the Eameses still oversee production today.

Charles and Ray worked together on hugely influential design and architecture projects in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, developing new ways of moulding plywood into sculptural curved modern forms. They learnt some of their early techniques working for the US Navy on the design of glider shells, splints and stretchers.

The Eameses referred to the lounge chair as the 670 and its accompanying foot rest (often called simply “Ottoman” today) as the 671 after the parts used in their construction.

The couple’s design philosophy is best expressed by this pithy quote from Charles Eames:

The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.

https://www.eamesoffice.com

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We’re passionate about wood. Sculptural, architectural, ornamental: we love wood in all its forms. But it’s safe to say that our first love will always be wood furniture – it’s what made us! So we’re starting a new series that pays homage to some of the greatest woodworkers ever to put pen to, er, wood. These are the masters of wood furniture design.

George Nakashima (1905-1990)

The woodworking poet who carved the soul of a tree

We’re ardent lovers of eco-friendly wood furniture design – that’s why we take wood that has been used elsewhere and find new life for it. It stops still-useful wood from going to waste, but it also allows us to put something special into our furniture design. We embrace the imperfections in our reclaimed wood and love every knot and groove for the story they tell. It means that every table, every bench we make is completely unique with its own woody fingerprint.

George Nakashima. Source: https://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/ image by unknown.

So when we say we feel spiritually close to the great George Nakashima, this is what we’re talking about. Nakashima was one of the pioneers of eco-friendly furniture design. His hallmark was re-using parts of trees, sometimes leaving whole logs virtually intact, so that the story of the tree was frozen forever in his furniture.

A room in Nakashima’s personal studio

The tree was Nakashima’s most important muse. He believed its purpose was to become function. In fact, he once said: “Each tree, every part of each tree, has only one perfect use.”

Nakashima working on his next piece of magic. Source: https://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/ image by unknown.

Looking through a Nakashima table top

Who is he? The Japanese/American designer George Katsutoshi Nakashima was born to Japanese parents in the US, Washington, in 1905. After studying architecture and travelling through Europe, India and Japan, he became one of the leading American furniture designers of the late 20^th century. His unique pieces are inspired by a mixture of Japanese traditional crafts and American modernism, known for their beautiful smooth grains and natural organic forms.

A simple woodworker. That’s how he described himself, and it’s the key to all his design. An almost mystical love of wood and the organic power of trees is what drives his unique work. He had huge respect for his materials, allowing the form of the tree to dictate the design, such as walnut coffee tables made of a single horizontal slice right through the base of a tree, with gnarled elements of roots and growth becoming key parts of the form.

New lounge chair in American black walnut by Nakashima

He said: “When the trees mature, it is fair and moral that they are cut for man’s use, as they would soon decay and return to the earth. Trees have a yearning to live again, perhaps to provide the beauty, strength and utility to serve man, even to become an object of great artistic worth.”

A rare Nakashima desk

The roots of his later genius. Because of his Japanese ancestry, Nakashima was interred during the Second World War in a camp in Idaho. It was here he met Gentaro Hikogawa, a master of traditional Japanese carpentry. Hikogawa taught him to use traditional Japanese tools and joinery techniques that used no nails or glue. Philosophically, he learnt the Japanese belief in working in balance with nature; and the importance of simplicity in design.

What made his work different? He went against the grain and rejected the usual tall straight trees and preferred the unusual side branches and less perfect specimens. He particularly favoured walnut trees for their unusual slow growth, gnarled side branches and thick heavy buds.

Conoid bench in Walnut and hickory design and made by Nakashima

He perfected ways of sawing the wood, saying: “There is drama in the opening of a log: to uncover for the first time the beauty in the bole of a tree hidden for centuries, waiting to be given this second life. Cutting logs entails a great responsibility, for we are dealing with a fallen majesty. There are no formulas, no guidelines, but only experience, instinct and a contact with the divine.”

https://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/

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