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charlieb
 
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Default Design - Cultural Factors - response to McQ

McQualude wrote:


snip

I think that cultural biases play a role, perhaps
a significant role.


Maybe, obviously very different cultures can appreciate each other's
furniture, so I don't think it is necessarily culture that is at work. I
recently read/watched (don't remember) a history of chinese furniture.
Chinese furniture solves the same problems that European furniture does,
it is really only the ornamentation that is different. A chair is a chair
whether it is gothic, chinese or colonial; each solve the same problem,
each are the same except for ornamentation. Now if you look back into the
early days of furniture you can find some experimentation that will give
the piece a distinctive look, but that is not necessarily cultural.


But chinese furniture, perhaps because of the Confuciousistic (sp) way
of life
that dominated China for so long stressed harmony - and it shows
uniquely
in their furniture. Where three pieces of wood meet in a corner the
joint
is triple mitered - grain direction seldom meets at 90 degrees,
perhaps
because that would look unharmonious. Their joinery is quite
sophisticated
but totally hidden from view, thus not distracting from the harmonious
whole. Chinese furniture also shies away from straigt lines and seems
to take things down to the point where just enough to work is the
goal,
heavily carved pieces being the exception. Western furniture is
typically
way over designed for its function. Most of the structural components
could be halved and not affect the functionality of the piece.

Here are some examples of cultural
biases that are probably factors that contribute to a
"good design" in one culture but a so-so or bad design
in others.


I already touched on this, but I believe a design is either good or not
good, regardless of the culture. Now, you may need to make allowances in
ornament or scale for different peoples, but that is about it.

Ah, but until there were cultural exchanges, via trade, furniture
stuck with "the norm", making evolutionary changes as new tools,
techniques and materials became available. But when trade with
Japan opened up the Art Nouveau style swept through Europe like
a wild fire, affecting everything that was "designed", from jewerly
to silver ware to furniture to bridges and train stations. The design
of euro culture leaped from having a few curves to everything curved
and non-planer (OK so the baroque stuff with all the carving and
gilting wasn't flat stuff but most people weren' Louie the XIV either)

Western cultures read left to right and then top to bottom
while middle eastern cultures read right to left and then
top to bottom. Eastern cultures read top to bottom and then
left to right. Good western designs have a tendency to
use this bias to draw the viewer's attention around the
piece. The same design "trick" might not work for other
cultures because their "reading paths" are different.


I don't believe good design uses 'tricks'. It's a matter of taste that is
difficult to define. Some people always seem to dress well, their outfits
look 'good' on them, they know how to dress to look good; others wear
sweats and a t-shirt and look like a blob. In both cases the clothes
solve a problem (covering your nakedness) both can be comfortable, both
cause very different perceptions of the person wearing them.

But "tricks" are used in visual arts all the time, be it painting,
sculpture, furniture or buildings and initially were done purposefully
and knowingly. Much of Renaissance art (and that includes
architecture
and furniture) used "tricks" to grab and hold the viewer's interest.
Painters used blue to imply distance and give added depth to their
work. If you've glanced acrossed a landscape during the summer you
may note that there's a natural haze and things further away appear
bluer than things closer to you.

Hell, the Golden Mean/Golden Ratio is a "trick" AND very cultural.
That Greek "trick" doesn't show up as a dominant factor in eastern
of middle eastern design.

Designs with clockwise "attention paths" are familiar
to cultures where clocks and watches are important but
may seem odd to cultures where time is seen differently.


Can you demonstrate this? Furniture is nearly always symmetrical.


Yes, the structure is symetrical but the grain pattern and direction
doesn't have to be and often isn't. The placement of light and
dark woods/finishes doesn't have to be symetrical nor does the
pattern of shapes within the basic outline have to be symetrical.
Western culture stuff likes symetry within symetry. But Japanese
tansu often are asymetric inside the outer rectangle. Japanese
furniture also makes the wood and it's grain a major factor in
their design whereas in european work it's the shape and function
which dominate and the wood is typically stained and finished
such that the grain becomes insignificant in the design, the more
homogeneous it looks the better.

But painters have used the "spiral trick" for a long time and
it works for furniture design as well.


Some countries had limited woods available - Japan for
example had primarily "soft woods". Did that affect
their approach to design?


Did it? This would seem to be quantifiable. A dovetail is different for
soft vs. hard woods, but that is usually a mechanical rather than design
consideration.


Just look at their building joinery and and tools and this becomes
apparent. Japan is subject to frequent earthquakes so their wood
construction joinery accounts for movement and the strength of
their woods. You don't find many simple mortise and tenon joints
or wedged tenons because that requires harder woods. Instead the
went with integrated, interlocking parts which relied on gravity
to hold them locked together.

To get around the limitations
of the range of woods available did they develop various
colored finishes to provide a broader color pallet than
the available woods provided?


Again, this would seem to be answerable. I don't know the answer, but I'm
sure a little research might yield the answer.

Europeans had a much broader
range of woods and wood colors so colored finishes weren't
necessary.


How long has stain/paint been around? At least 200 years.
--


In europe perhaps, but a lot longer in The Orient

Now here's another cultural thing. Much of eastern furniture is
designed to be transportable (has handles/wheels/loops for poles
as part of the design) whereas most european furniture does not.
Shaker "built ins" assume a constancy and permanence - something
not taken as a given in places where the ground moves a lot -
and suddenly at that. Most euro furniture, the Scandanavian
stuff being an exception, assume large living spaces and there
fore large pieces of furniture. Japan has limited flat spots
and has concentrated its population in a relatively small
area of ground. Space is at a premium so large, single function
furniture just doesn't work, given the smaller living space.

McQualude