Cool furniture, design objects and desiderata

[Find Finn]

Buy it put it on 1dibs and make $2k, problem solved.

 

[Reggs]



I came here about 2 years ago to complain about my wife's cat coming to live with us, her not wanting to declaw him, and my worry about him destroying all of my stuff, plus I just did not like cats. Fast forward to today and he is my best bud, we hang out together, play fetch, he sits halfway on my shoulder like a parrot when we watch TV. I'm also so glad we didn't declaw after reading how painful it would be. We put nail caps on him and all of our stuff has remained unharmed. I can't speak about all cats, but I can say that at least one of them is awesome.

[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

That's a happy story. Pets can be an amazing comfort.

 

[Find Finn]

Sergio Rodrigues seems to be getting some love outside of Brazil, finally.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Sergio Rodrigues seems to be getting some love outside of Brazil, finally.

I agree he's great, but as one of the world's most celebrated midcentury furniture desgners, he's hardly unknown. Or are you just talking about reception in the USA?

 

[Find Finn]

Celebrated is not the same as populated and getting used a lot.

 

[poorsod]

Nakashima 2 piece dining table cut from a single slab of wood.

 

[apropos]

OK, that looks OK, so so really. If I had just paid $10,000 or whatever mega $ he commands I would have been a bit disappointed.

What is it about Nakashima that gets him the +++ love and respect?

Was he the first person to come up (or popularise) natural edge furniture? Natural feeling finishes?

Or it is all smoke mirrors the myth the legend plus Japanese family name = Americans going crazy over his stuff?

I mean, that's about as simple as it gets to knock together a dining table without specialised equipment,.

Honestly, am looking to get educated - what am I missing?

 

[poorsod]

Sold for $40k. Far less than the 6 digit pieces.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

My opinion on the work of Nakashima, specifically in furniture, is that it is his interpretation of traditional temple carpentry applied to furniture.

The temple carpenters would choose to leave certain important beams in their natural form, they would do so by hewing the sides of the beam, or simply peeling the bark of the beam, to display it's form. They did this in appreciation of the material that they were working with. The beams, being surrounded by more rational and neatly dimensioned beams, would stand apart and be recognized in a much greater way than if they were all showing their natural form. I feel at some point Nakashima understood this relationship and decided to apply it to furniture design. He took that a few steps further with the shaker and modernist aspects of his furniture.

The aesthetic is very, very old, but his application of it is unique and very well done. He truly had an eye for grain and exposing and display of that grain.

The annoying part is where people extend the line, or erase the connection to ancient work, but that is not the fault of the Nakashimas in any way, it's often done by people writing articles and painting with very broad strokes. For instance, I read an article with regard to Nakashima where the writer stated "He was one of the first furniture makers to celebrate wood's imperfections, enhancing the texture of the grain, knotholes, worm holes, and cracks."......which is true only if you do not count over a thousand years of temple carpentry, among many other examples.

It was meant to be practical work, it is successfully practical work when used as intended....buyers chasing the enthusiasm of the auction do not make it less practical or less capable of being enjoyed and appreciated for what it is.

If you want to experience it, go to the MET Museum and sit as his coffee table and look at the grain. That table is incredible, if you are going to appreciate the work at all, you will at that point, in my opinion.

The work, especially the very early work, was done entirely by hand and I can say from experience that flattening a slab with exciting grain then finishing it with a hand plane are not easy things to accomplish, they take a very high level of ability. Add to that very solid joinery and you have a very well made product which was originally priced competitively.

 

[Piobaire]

I can appreciate beautiful work and wood but I think the disconnect comes with a lofty price tag on what should be a practical piece of furniture, in this case a dining table, and that is anything but practical. I think I would have less problems with it if it was presented strictly as a sculpture vs. masquerading as usable furniture.

 

[lefty]

There are a few things in life that make me think that, perhaps there is a God after all. A Nakashima table is one of those things.

lefty

 

[SkinnyGoomba]



I can appreciate beautiful work and wood but I think the disconnect comes with a lofty price tag on what should be a practical piece of furniture, in this case a dining table, and that is anything but practical. I think I would have less problems with it if it was presented strictly as a sculpture vs. masquerading as usable furniture.

Pio, fair point, but these are auction prices as opposed to what the pieces sold for when they were produced. In fact, you see a lot of stuff going to auction that served the mundane day-to-day task of holding up dinner plates until their owners could no longer ignore auction pricing. They were made to be used, not to serve as sculpture.

It's not, at least in my opinion, representative of the makers intentions, but instead of supply and demand.

The auction prices have driven the entire industry upward significantly, down to the slab lumber.

Rare figured woods, Burls and crotch sections have always been sought after, but there is a lot of plain stuff or real junk wood that would be out and out rejected if it were not sold for use as a slab dining table or bench at a huge premium.

 

[twistoffat]

As Mies van der Rohe said "Less is more". Sometime the high prices son´t reflect the material that goes in. Just look at Porsche car Club Sport or RS models. Take the standard car...remove some of the extra trappings and charge more for it. All those models have gone up in price too. Combine that with a name and hey presto...desire drives price.

 

[Medwed]



There are a few things in life that make me think that, perhaps there is a God after all. A Nakashima table is one of those things.

lefty

There is no God.

 

[twistoffat]



There is no God.

There may be a god but theres definitely no accounting for taste