Shaker furniture

Shaker Furniture ( English shaker furniture ) is furniture that were made by members of the shaker, the adherents of a Protestant Free Church in the United States, especially in the 19th century. They are now classified as a separate and weighty contribution to art history, but it also influenced the functionalist -oriented modernism in architecture and design.

Features

In their furniture to the ascetic life of the Shaker ethos reflects - Commodities should not be distracted with a superfluous ornamentation of work and devotion. In the absence of ornaments and decorations, the furniture style of the Shakers in the 19th century saw clearly from the prevailing and changing styles of historicism. However, in its formal rigor, the clean lines, the orientation on usefulness and high functionality, the Shaker furniture show parallels with the English Arts and Crafts movement. The objects are made of local wood ( eg pine, maple, walnut). Was a circumferential horizontal wooden bar in the periodically -turned hooks were let Typical of the living quarters of the shaker. There, clothing, tools, watches, and during cleaning of the floor and the chairs could be hung.

History

Your technical skills, and especially the joinery made ​​since their emigration from England to America in 1774, is one of the main sources of income of the Shakers, even if the furniture was initially produced mainly for their own consumption. Your quality turned wooden furniture found nationwide appeal, even if the simple, jewelry and understated looks of the pieces often met with their contemporaries criticism. Famous in particular their rocking chairs (Salem rocker ).

The Shakers were technical innovations compared to open-minded and led around the circular saw in the U.S. a. When they offered their furniture during the World Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, they learned there know, developed by Michael Thonet bentwood process and began in the sequence, make your own bentwood furniture.

With increasing demand their carpentry shops soon went on to a standard production and transformed themselves partly to furniture factories. Today, original Shaker furniture are extremely rare and difficult to buy, but replicas are produced worldwide. The shaker itself, however, are extinct except three remaining followers.

Examples of Shaker furniture

A clock from 1840 on a hook strip in Pleasant Hill ( Kentucky)

Furnished common room with stove in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Presumably, a conference hall in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Forged doorknob in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Built Verwahrschränke in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Closet in Grafton (New Hampshire)

Interior of a room in Mount Lebanon

Secretary in Mount Lebanon

Staircase to Hancock (Massachusetts )

Bannister in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Flight of stairs with railings in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Spiral staircase of the Shaker Centre Family Trustees ' Office in Pleasant Hill ( Kentucky)

Rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shared room in Pleasant Hill ( Kentucky)

Two rocking chairs in Pleasant Hill ( Kentucky)

A kitchen in Hancock (Massachusetts )

Two wooden boxes ( "Oval Boxes" ) in Pleasant Hill ( Kentucky)