Keep To These Suggestions When Looking For Stylish And Functional Wooden Furniture
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010If you are looking for furniture, consider Mission style for its clean lines and sturdy American construction
Mission furniture is a genuine American art form that remains popular as a collector’s item and present day furniture design. The specific beginnings of this design seem to be unknown, however the tale generally quoted is that Mission furniture had been constructed by the parishioners of a San Francisco church about 1890. Having little money, these parishioners chose to build the furniture themselves, constructing pieces resembling furniture encountered in the Spanish mission stations of Mexico and also in the western and southwestern regions of the United States. A different tale says the Native Americans helped the monks put together furniture for the recently built missions in California and Mexico. The resulting styles ended up simple, strong, utilitarian chairs and tables, lacking embellishments, and stylish in their simplicity, strength, and beauty. Discover more about mission furniture.
Mission-style furniture was fashionable in the United States between 1890 and 1914 and became an element connected with the Arts and Crafts movement that began in Britain. The movement stressed the value of preserving the handcrafted furniture, and was a counterpoint to the more extravagantly designed furniture of the Victorian period. The style was seriously influenced by the straight lines and straightforward shapes of the Japanese furniture of that era, however, Mission style furniture is purely American, and it merely preserved the fundamental philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement. After it became popularly accepted, the term “Mission Furniture” was given to this particular style, and while it had started in the West, it would be a New York-based designer, Joseph McHugh, who began making Mission furniture for the middle class. Discover more about oak mission style furniture.
Given that manufactured goods of that time were often terrible in quality and design, the Arts and Crafts movement pushed the revival of quality craftsmanship. Cheap, mass-produced goods should be supplanted with well designed objects produced by professional hands, and this furniture mirrored the ideals of the movement. Mission-style furnishings were plain, stylish and practical, and constructed from natural, unpainted wood and other earthy materials.
Mission-style furniture at that time was constructed almost entirely of weathered or fumed oak. Characterized by straight lines, and mortise, tenon, and dowel joinery, this style of furniture was generally free of embellishment, although large nail heads, straight forward cut out shapes or hand-hammered copper appliqués were occasionally used for decoration. Both original and modern-day Mission furniture is characterized by straight, uncluttered lines and the unadorned charm of quarter-sawn white oak with features of joinery, incorporating through tenons, corbels and butterfly joints. Only a handful of furniture styles have retained the attractiveness of Mission style furniture. From its solid lines and handcrafted beginnings, this furniture has been at the vanguard of solid oak and wood furniture for more than a hundred years.
