A Brief of Furniture Design

Prehistoric Furniture
Begin when people learned to farm and live permanently. Earliest know furniture was in Europe at Sara Brae in the Orkney Island in Scotland about 2,000BC. The furniture are made from stone.

Ancient Egyptian Furniture
The rich Egyptian lived in large and comfortable houses, with painted wall and floors. The furniture founded from wood, like bed, chairs, table, and chests as storage. They still used wooden as head rest.  On the other hand, ordinary people lived in simpler home made from mud. They sat on the brick, benches around the wall. They used reed chests or wooden pegs on walls to store things.

Ancient Greek Furniture
The Greeks stored things in wooden chest or hung them from wooden pegs on the walls. People reclined on couches (also act like a bed). The couches were simply wooden frames with rope webbing and mats or rugs laid on top.

Roman Furniture
The owner of furniture still the wealthy family. The used comfortable furniture and carved. Rich people use to be ate while reclining on couches. They use oil lamp for light.

Saxon Furniture
They usually lived together in one room. The upper class slept on the bed with the straw mattresses and pillows but the poorest slept on floor. Mostly know Saxon furniture are heavy and basic such as wooden benches, tables, tapestries. There were no panes of glass in windows, even at wealthy family.


Furniture in The Middle Ages
The the Saxon, people still lived together. The different is the upper people has a room above of great hall. They slept surrounded with curtain to protect them from droughts and privacy. The other developed on the great hall, they had fire place and chimney on the both end. Furniture is very rare at that time, only the lord had the chair. That's why they call it chair man. Servants sat on the stools or benches.

16th Century
Furniture still a rare thing and developed for wealthy people. Most of furniture has a basic shape. They used oak as material the same thing with Middle ages. Bed became more comfortable, for example they used feather mattresses and had four- poster hung with curtain. Glass and chimneys are more common.

17th Century
Furniture are more comfortable and decorated. Walnut and mahogany used for the first time as material. Veneering technique became new trend of decorating. Coating also introduced at this time.


18th Century
Furniture become more common and well developed. Famous furniture maker at that time such as Thomas Chippendale, George Hepplewhite, Thomas Sheraton, James Cox (clock maker). In America the first great cabinet maker were Duncan Phyfe, John Goddard, and Samuel Mclntire.

19th Century
for the first time furniture was mass-produced. That's why makes furniture's price going down and leads lower. standard

20th Century
Rising living standard meant it was possible to furnish all the rooms.During the time ordinary people's furniture greatly improved in quality and design. In the 1920s and 1930s a new style of furnitue and architecure was introduced. It was Art Deco (familiar with geometric shape). The name Art Deco came from an Exhibition on Paris in 1925 called Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs. Britain became affluent society and standard of furniture for ordinary people, there are two famous designers of 20th Century are Ron Arad and John Makepeace.

Source
Lambert,T 2011, A BRIEF HISTORY OF FURNITURE, seen on from: http://www.localhistories.org/furniture.html, accessed: 15.8.2011