Furniture Design through the ages

Furniture is all around us. It is as essential to our lives as oxygen. Take a moment and have a look around the room you are in while reading this. Are you sitting at a desk? Or is your laptop resting on your knees as you sit in an armchair. Are there shelves on the wall, cupboards, a table or a sofa? All of these have been designed. Each of them started as a sketch on a designer's pad, or a flick of a computer mouse.

Most furniture has dual functions. It has a practical purpose, and it also adds to the look, feel and experience of the space that you are in. Right from Neolithic times, when the material of choice was stone, through to the present day, when steel, wood, plastic, ceramics and many more materials are used, furniture has been part of our experience of living.

Styles have changed through time, and cost has always been a factor. The rich have favoured ornate design, while the less well off made their own, or bought simple functional furniture. During the Renaissance in Europe, the explosion of art and craft saw the use of gold leaf, detailed carving and rich fabrics become popular. Hand crafted pieces kept workshops busy, and fashion was important too.

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, and manufacturing become possible, furniture became more affordable with machinery reducing previous manufacturing times by up to ten times and so design filtered through to the wider population.

Modernism started in the beginning of the 20^th century. One of the most famous chairs of all time was designed in 1917 by Gerrit Rietvel , and you can still see its influence today.

With today’s furniture, we have a huge range of styles, shapes, colours and materials to choose from. At Sliderobes we pride ourselves on being able to create customised storage solutions for any room and using our extensive choice of colours and materials you can be confident that our designs will complement the rest of your furniture perfectly.