Tools For Working Wood

A Victorian style rustic fence over a stream
I grew up near Central Park, but I am less familiar with its northernmost parts. Last Saturday had fabulous weather - a great time to explore the park. The north end of the park was intentionally designed to be an area of hills, hikes, and nature. Since the park's opening, a large public pool and some ball fields have been added, but this part of the park is very much substantially the way Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, the park's designers, envisioned it.

The Conservatory Garden
We started at the Conservatory Garden on Fifth Avenue and 105th Street. The Conservatory Garden is a staggeringly pretty formal European garden. In the spring and summer you'll see multiple wedding parties getting photographed, but at this time of year you'll find folks who enjoy the peace and beauty. Then we walked, mostly uphill, to two waterfalls tucked away in the woods. The north end of the park is very hilly. And by hilly I mean OMG up and down, up and down, all the time. The hills are bad enough so the bicycle loop that goes around the park has a shortcut at 102nd Street if you don't think you can make the hills on the full circle that goes to 110th street. It's bad: I've done it.

If this part of the park has a style, it would be "Victorian Rustic." It has just enough organization so the rock formations allow you to step up to the waterfall, but not so much organization that you feel you're at a tourist attraction.

Like many centrally located urban parks, Central Park is incredibly heavily used. There are rowers, hikers, picnickers, people playing sports of all kinds. There is a roller disco dance area and bird watchers everywhere. There was a formal birdwatching activity for kids - in fact you can see a person dressed as a cardinal in the corner of one of the photos. And it's all free, one of the great goods of the city.

The park was built in the 1850s, the first landscaped park in the US. It was designed to serve its residents, who needed a place to cool down in the steamy summer heat and relax in nature, and also showcase the city as a major world class city with an urban jewel park as other cities had.

There was a lot of opposition to the park, but as speculators and another opportunists realized, there was also tons of money to be made. Central Park was built with a fair amount of corruption thrown in. Whole neigborhoods were condemned and torn down. Thousands of people were hired to shape the park. Mountains were blasted, valleys were dug, and the park came into being. And this is the point of this blog. What astounds me about Central Park is that the city government, complete with all its corruption, managed to build such an incredible public good. These days when I read in the papers about politicians overriding the will of the people to build things like data centers and tear down environmental protection, in return for donations, I think to myself, at least back then some of the corruption was for a public good. Now it's just money.

Here are some pictures of my trek in the north of the park. Bear in mind that Central Park is only three avenue blocks (5th - 8th) wide, so you're never really far from "civilization" (a good bagel). Traffic though the park is hidden from view by several deep transverses. The brilliance of the park's design, with its winding paths and architectural features, makes you forget that you are at most 1200 feet from a densely populated streetscape.

If you like the rustic furniture, you might find "Rustic Carpentry" a welcome addition to your library.


An original stone staircase
One of the waterfalls; note the cardinal in the corner
A babbling brook
Reading and watching the ducks
Birdwatchers sitting on a rustic chair
Very low res picture of ducks
View from a path
The Reservoir

Having a drink with Matt and Julia
Heres a shout-out to Julia Kalthoff, the Swedish axe-maker. We first became acquainted with Julia via an article in Quercus magazine, and immediately started carrying her axes thereafter. We finally met Julia in person at Handworks. She came all the way from Stockholm! Weve been out of stock of the axes for a while but good news were expecting a shipment next month.
I also met for the first time Matt Johnson, a woodworker based in Iowa who was helping Julia with her booth and logistics. This is an example of camaraderie that we love to see in the woodworking community. We had dinner with them both, and Matt showed me his portfolio of some really wonderful work. Take a look here. He's got a great modernist take on the Arts and Crafts style, which I like a lot. Im also a sucker for walnut, my favorite wood. In addition to being a furniture maker, Matt also is a spoon maker and teaches spoon making.

Julia Kalthoff in her booth at Handworks

It was great meeting people in Amana. Some of the people I was meeting for the first time said they felt they knew me already, and its because they read the blog, which was fun. It was especially great to meet some of the people who had bought the Folding Treadle lathe from the pre-order list and had actually begun using it. (Reports: they are having a lot of fun with the lathe!)

An update on the lathe. We have finished the pre-orders. We have a few lathes in stock that we are offering to people who have previously put their names down to be notified when we have lathe to sell. When those are gone, there will be a bit of a break while we change vendors for the base. After that we should have lathes available for everyone.

Possibly the most important part of the treadle lathe experience is shared by most of the hand tools we stock. There is no motor - it is Powered By You. You are not a machine operator. With hand tools, you are the machine. This give you a sense of control and participation that many people find extremely satisfying. So we put this idea on a T-Shirt with an original design and artwork by Alyson, whom many of you met at Handworks (and others of you have spoken to when you've called on Mondays and Wednesdays). We had to rush the T-Shirt so we would have them in time for Handworks, but now the dust has settled and we can make them generally available here.

Konrad Sauer and his 911
Recently I was asked to critique a photographer's portfolio, and at some point I learned that all the work was shot on film. I asked the photographer why he shot on film and he said that it was because each shot was a commitment. You have to photograph with intent. The cost of film made each push of a button important and required thought. He didn't get that with digital photography, for which the marginal cost of another picture is zero. This technique helped him focus and make intentional decisions.

I write with a fountain pen. It helps me think. Or maybe more accurately it trains me to think. Ink doesn't erase so I have to approach the page with the intention of getting it right. I need to visualize the words and the spelling and the shape of the letters beforehand. It helps me focus and it trains me to think about my intentions whatever I am doing, including designing tools and making things. I also find the entire process as complicated as it is very satisfying.

Konrad Sauer, the plane maker, drove to the Handworks show in Amana this year in a 1981 Porsche 911 SC Coupe. This is a choice. It's not a trivial car to drive. Konrad can't put the car in cruise control and sit back. He has to actively listen, feel, and pay attention to the engine, shift gears as appropriate, and generally be a participant in the actual act of going to from place A to place B. This is intentional. The reason Konrad makes this choice is because participating in the physicality of driving this car is fun. But there's more to it. Makers and designers are deeply involved in the work they do. We have to make decisions all the time, about color, shape, function, materials. And the thinking is coupled with hand operations. Thousands of small decisions and movements go into making a single one of Konrad's planes. Practicing working with intention helps make other decisions in all areas easier. And by the same token, designing (in Konrad's own case) a plane with all its decisions is the type of work he likes to do. Driving a manual car is an extension of that fun, just in a different realm.

I think that the process of making decisions coupled with physical action is extremely satisfying to humans and that's the reason Porche 911's, manual cameras, and fountain pens are still popular with a lot of people, especially makers. For me, the constant, instantaneous decisions I have to make when writing in ink (especially as a lefty) help train me and make all the choices and effort I need to exert when typing easier. The process is as important as the result.

This blog post came out of discussion I had with Konrad at Handworks and so I shared a draft with him. He wrote,

"Using manual things, cameras, manual transmission cars, fountain pens, hand tools, they force us to take a deep breath and slow down. The stakes are higher - something could go wrong and something could be ruined - there is more weight behind the activity. It requires careful thought and deliberate action on our part. We are engaged on a different level - it requires that we pay closer attention. There is an element of the workmanship of risk behind it. Developing the skill of being deliberate crosses multiple platforms and areas of interest - they all inform one another and are cumulative. Driving an old manual car helps me use a manual camera which helps me make (and use) handplanes." - Konrad Sauer

Here are some examples of Konrad's work:

The view from our booth

I don't have much of a blog this week because I've been busy preparing for Handworks. Handworks is the best hand tool show in the world. The show is held in Amana Colonies, Iowa, next Friday, Sept. 4th, and Saturday, Sept. 5th, 10am - 5pm both days. Admission is free. Here are some pictures from the last one - in 2023. We showed off our prototype folding treadle lathe at the last Handworks, and this year we'll have lathes for sale, along with lots of other stuff. The real attraction for us, however, is getting a chance to meet in person so many people who have supported us over the years. It's wonderful to see the energy behind hand tool woodworking. People have a great time.

So this past week we have been putting things in boxes and putting the boxes on pallets. I'll be representing TFWW at this year's show along with Alyson, whom many of you have spoken with on the phone or in person.

You can get a sense of the influence and excitement Handwork generates with the following story. A customer came in this week mostly to buy Festool, but he also loves hand tools. At the spur of the moment he decided to go to the show and began looking at plane tickets. I'm hoping that many of you reading this post can indeed find attendance worth the airfare, long drive, etc. Friday is usually mobbed; Saturday is a little mellower - but a great time is had by all.

The reason that all the pictures except one are from the Festhalle Barn, where are booth is, is that being a vendor, unfortunately, I never get a chance to see the show and rarely leave the barn. If I grab you by the shoulders and ask you keep an eye on the booth for a little while - it's because we need a break.

Roy Underhill doing the keynote speech. This year it's Chris
Alan Dorsey explaining what's going on with the treadle lathe
Pat Leach's booth of vintage tools which was across the aisle
Awesome display of miniature tools by Paul Hamler
Demo rasps and saws at our booth
The one time I got outside at saw stuff in the tent

Between 1905 and 1943, Stanley manufactured the No. 52 Chute Board and Plane. In 1909, the Chute Board Plane No. 51 was made separately available.

While a modern chop saw or table saw can instantly create a glass smooth square cut, hand saws can give an accurate cut, but not something glass smooth. I have never owned a table saw; I have done all the work in making furniture completely by hand. I didn't do this because of high-minded purity. But as someone who lived and did my furniture-making in an apartment, I simply didn't have space or soundproofing for a table saw. With practice and paying attention, sawing something square is not that difficult. But even a great saw edge isn't perfect because the saw marks leave a rough surface. For joints that are not seen, that's usually fine. For anything visible, however, you need a clean straight edge.

The way you create a clean straight edge is by shooting the edge with a plane. There are millions of guides on the internet on how to do this, but the basic theory is you place the work flat in a fixture, and - with a plane on its side - you plane the end grain front to back. Chute board planes were invented to make this easy. Most chute board planes had a skewed blade to promote a slightly better attack angle on the end grain of a wood. The skewed blade also helped push the wood down against the shoot board that the wood was braced against. The better planes also had angled handles - easier to hold. If you used a Stanley No. 9 Cabinetmaker's Block Plane for shooting, you could get an accessory "Hot Dog" handle that fit on the side so that the plane was easier to hold. With a traditional miter plane, or a regular bench plane, you just grabbed the side of the plane.

With an accurate shooting board, you could not only make the edge of a board clean and smooth, but also dead square. The work rests against a fence on the shooting board, and the plane is guided square by riding in a trough on the side.

With a fence on a shooting board set at 45 degrees, you also can make perfect miter joints.

For centuries, wooden fixtures were the way this was done. Making what is essentially a bench stop with a ledge for the plane is pretty straightforward. The trick is building a fixture with a perfect, accurate, 90 fence. In 1905, Stanley introduced a very expensive, but not very popular, Chute Board Plane and Board. It was $10.00 in 1915, which was a lot of money. I've had one for about 30 years. What I love about mine: it's actually pretty comfortable to use with that slanted handle; it's dead accurate; and it produces a great result. I attached a wooden sacrificial fence to mine, because when I'm doing something precise I prefer having support all the way up to the edge of the work. I've never really used it for any miters. Both Lie-Nelson and Lee Valley have created their versions of this plane.

The original plane had a holddown for the work. I didn't get it with my plane. Aftermarket replacements are available, but I never got around to getting one, and I've never really missed it. The plane is heavy and there's momentum behind it. It is beautifully machined and extremely accurate. I find just only has one flaw with it: unlike every other Stanley bench plane, it has a frog that is not adjustable. So you cannot stick a Hock or other aftermarket thicker blade (with their performance benefit) into the plane without widening the mouth with a file - which I'm simply not willing to do. Such an alteration would seriously affect the plane's resale value. When I got my plane I did need to replace the blade and I got a replacement blade from Karl Holtey, who ground one up thin for me special in an exotic alloy. It's an awesome blade.

When I'm doing cabinet work, the plane rests against a stop on the right side of my bench. It happens I don't use my vise much so it never gets in the way. Most my clamping is done with holdfasts and a tail vise on the left hand side of the workbench.

Our showroom barely earns the name - it's just the front part of our warehouse/manufacturing where we have some products on display. But we nevertheless manage to host customers from all over the world, and we're very happy to see them.

Often one of the visitors is driving the visit, with some bored loved ones in tow. We try to suggest local delights that will offset the boring-to-them tool talk. Recently we had visitors from Brazil, Germany, the Dominican Republic and the UK, in addition to states far away from Brooklyn.

We recently also hosted some local browsers - probably extremely local, as in the river one block away. A family of geese stopped by to check out the shop.

The geese didn't talk much so I don't know their names. It was a family of four, and they really came by to get out of the heat. The father wandered around looking at the tools on the lower shelves. The mom and the two goslings sat down on the cool concrete and rested. They didn't actually buy anything, which isn't a surprise since they didn't seem to have cash, a card or a phone. I suppose having webbed flippers not fingers is a handicap for woodworking. But you didn't hear it from me - I like to be encouraging. Basically they visited to get out of the heat, have some water, and use the bathroom (let's just say their habits here left room for improvement). Just to be safe, we called animal protection to find out if we should do anything special to protect them - we're down the block from an expressway extension with a lot of traffic. Animal Protection said that if the geese didn't seem to be in distress, which they weren't, they would probably wander up and down the block and go back to the river.

Apparently this is what they did, we've seen them several times subsequently. They're I guess staycationing in the city for the summer or at least until the goslings are old enough to fly. Our FedEx driver said he has seen them in other spots in the neighborhood near the river, so there's probably a way for them to get to water. But I don't exactly know where. We have been delighted to see that the goslings have definitely been growing and look pretty healthy. So that's very nice. I know this is a story about retail not woodworking, but one of the best parts about buying things in person whether you're doing it by coming to the store or calling up, is the personal connection we get when we actually meet our customers. Even if they're just plain quackers.

In other news, we are almost finished delivering all the pre-ordered treadle lathes. Delivery has definitely been slower than we would like, because we are having trouble with some of our suppliers. Manufacturing is hard! We will be taking a few lathes to Hand Works in Amana. How many we will bring depends on if we get another shipment of bases from our welder. And we just won't know for at least another week. Either way, we should be able to reopen ordering either just before Amana or just after. (We hope.)

That leaves me right into saying I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of you at Handworks on the first weekend of September. It's the only woodworking show we do, and it's well worth the effort for both us and you. Pretty much the entire hand tool world is there and the admission is free. It's a great, fun, exhausting time for all. The big problem is for me is that I've been to every single Handworks, and because I'm working a booth I have yet to really see the show. But stop on by, say hello, play with the lathe. You will have a great time.

Left: 60 live center. Right: live cup center
I have previously written about the drive centers used on a treadle lathe. Today it's the tailstock's turn. The tailstock support does two things: the first is obvious - it keeps your spindle work from falling out of the lathe. The second, which is important even if you're using a chuck to hold a material, is that it prevents the end of the work from bending away due to tool pressure. In thin stock, this is very obvious that you want to support the material so it doesn't bend away from the tool as it cut. With large work held in a chuck, support from a tailstock center will help prevent the work from spinning out of the chuck if there is a catch.

The most primitive tailstock center is just a pointed bit of metal that the work can rotate around. Such a center is called a dead center, and is typically a steel rod coming to a 60 point. You can just put dead center in your tailstock and it will work. But in general, this isn't done anymore. The problem is that unless you keep the dead center continuously lubricated, the turning work creates a lot of friction and therefore heat, and you lose energy that could otherwise go for keeping the work turning. Before ball bearings became inexpensive, the aptly named dead center was a pretty common way of supporting work. I don't have a dead center for my treadle lathe - there is no point. I do have one for my metal lathe, but I've never used it.


Once the 60 live center with a rotating cone was invented and became affordable, there absolutely was no reason to use a dead center. The typical live center is a 60 cone that spins. All you do is drill a hole at the end of your work, with or without an additional countersink, and the cone supports the work. Works like a charm.



I don't use a 60 live center much either. The reason is that you have to drill a hole. Cup centers are more recent invention. That's what we supply with our treadle lathe. To use it, all you need to do is lay out the center location with a punch mark. The pin in the center of the cup registers on that mark. When you tighten up the tailstock, the sharp ring of the cup grabs the wood and holds it solid. That's it. No drilling. And it rotates along with the work like any live center so there's no friction problem either. I can't think of a reason not to use a cup center - except for two situations. First, if you're turning anything with a hole at the end, you can't locate a cup center. In this case, a regular 60 live center will just center itself on the hole just fine. This is actually pretty important when you're turning handles and other things that get drilled before you actually do the turning. The second case: if you're turning something that has a very small end. Our cup centers are 5/8" in diameter. This means if you want to turn the end of your work smaller than 5/8", you simply don't have the clearance. A typical approach is to leave a little waste at the end. But depending on how deep you put a center hole, a regular live center allows you to turn smaller at the end. The only problem I have with cup centers is that I find over time the ring wears in on the work and gets a little loose. So periodically I find myself having to tighten up the tailstock a little more.

One important advantage of a center - either style - is that it's repeatable. If you take work out of the lathe and put it back, the tailstock center ensures that the work will be aligned that same way as before.

The cup center installed and in use
The ring cut in the work by the cup center. This particular stock was coated in wax - which is why the cut is so smeary
A rendering of a 1/2 center
This leads to a final type of center which I don't own. It's a half center. It's a dead center, so there's always that friction issue. You might want to avoid using it - except when you have to - but it has the top half ground away so you could actually turn right up to the center of the work without hitting your tool on the steel center. This is handy for small work. I would call this a specialty tool, and I haven't seen much commentary about it, but some vendors still stock them.

"HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3"
I just heard a spectacular sound system that was set up as part of an exhibit, The Art of Noise, at the Cooper Hewitt Museum a Smithsonian museum that focuses on design (above). The exhibit "HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3" by Devon Turnbull is a state-of-the-art listening system set up in one room of the spectacular Andrew Carnegie mansion in which the museum is based. The sound is powerful, crisp, with an articulated bass that I have never heard before. It was awesome listening to it. The room was totally subjugated to the requirements of the sound. Baffles were hung from the ceiling; sound absorption cushions were hung covering the awesome carved paneling that I could have spent hours looking at. The seating was nondescript although comfortable enough. The front of the room had two giant woofers; I'm not sure how the rest of the stuff in the middle works. This is a system costing many of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And yet - in a typical failure of design that we see in so many audio systems - the beauty of the room was hidden and the records, the heart of the system, were on the floor leaning against a soundboard.

The first floor of the museum included furniture pieces as exemplars of great artifacts of design. But "The Art of Noise" drew the bulk of attendees because furniture is increasingly something most people don't care about. Furniture has become a disposable purchase. It's something most people don't pay attention to (with rare exceptions, perhaps including you). This is why Ikea is so successful. Their furniture is intensely practical at the cost of elegance and longevity.

What we do care about is gizmos. The television was a very important one, with whole rooms designed around a giant screen. But as The Art of Noise documents, beginning in the early in the 20th century, and reaching a height in the 1970's and '80's, sound systems became important elements of the home. People set up phonographs, radios, and speakers in their living rooms and dens.

The exhibit has some of the more interesting stereo systems of that era.

When you design something, it's usually pretty important to figure out before you start what features are important. In the system by Turnbull, it's pretty obvious that the system was designed purely for the best sound, nothing else. Sound quality in the systems shown below took a back seat to convenience, modern elegance, and looking high-tech and expensive. (At least this was my perspective. The museum described the exhibit as "designed to envelop the listener in sound that is as rich in texture as it is in emotion, [so] visitors will experience realistic, natural sound from Turnbulls sculptures and a chance to slow down and engage deeply in listening.")

"Stereo Chest"
Most of the equipment shown below were by international manufacturers of audio equipment, but two boutique systems stand out. The walnut "Stereo Chest" (1973) by Wendell Castle fits right in with the rest of his work at the time, but it's not really about "sound" per se. When closed, the chest even conceals its purpose. To me it looks like a drinks cabinet that someone converted for audio.

"Concrete Stereo"
Next door to the Castle chest is "Concrete Stereo" (1983) by Ron Arad. The setup includes a turntable, amp, and speakers. Again the artwork seems less about sound than visual interest. While it's not to my taste I think it's pretty cool.

The other images of these sound systems are more futuristic than what most people had, but I find them compelling. In general these packages do not sound as good as audiophile systems of the time, where the emphasis was on sound, rather than looks or convenience.

"SoundSticks"
The SoundSticks from 2000 are a fun stopgap between then and now. Designed by the Apple Industrial Design Group for Harmon Kardon, it was one of the cooler attempts at smaller "bookshelf" systems for people without the floor space for a full-sized system.

TPS-L2-Walkman
The death knell for common sound systems first rang in 1979. Inventors had tried to make music portable since the 1930's, but the introduction of TPS-L2-Walkman and headphones made portability a reality. Sound became personal, and that changed everything. Music didn't need to tie you down to a specific room or location: you could bring it with you. And because the format was a cassette, you could mix and match your own music. What you listened to became yours and yours alone. This phenomenon was the tip of the iceberg. Later came the Ipod and of course phones. While I still prefer listening over speakers, and the Turnbull installation shows how involving that can be, most people listen to music as a portable, personal experience.

The exhibit included a vast range of portable music devices in addition to the Walkman. The exhibit also had a room with some wonderful concert posters reminding us that live music is still awesome. This collection included some very memorable posters - I know I won't soon forget the poster for a James Brown at the Apollo that featured the astonishing assertion that the show was suitable for all families.

I mostly rate art by whether or not I want it - how willing I am to wallow in covetous feelings. I own a decent stereo system, and I have a lot of records I don't play anymore now that I stream. I didn't really covet anything in the show except I wish I'd gone to those concerts listed on the posters. Even the awesome system on the first floor: I can't imagine turning a room into something like that. The equipment's just too big. But everything was fun to listen too, and see.

The show was supposed to close over the weekend, but has been extended through August 16, 2026


Designed by Dieter Rams, 1962-1965, and manufactured by Braun AG
Center: RR-126 Radio - Phonograph 1965, by Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. Manufactured by Brionvega S.p.A. Right: Vision 2000 Cassette Player and Radio - 1971 - Thilo Oerke Manufactured by Rosita Tonmobel - Audiorama 4000 Speakers 1972 designed and manufactured by Grundi
SC7300 Stereo System 1973 designed and manufactured General Electric Company

The wonderful main hallway of the Cooper Hewitt Museum, formerly the Andrew Carnegie Mansion

Manhattan is filled with boring skyscraper boxes. But fortunately Manhattan is also filled with the buildings that predate the boring boxes, so there are many opportunities to see incredible decorative elements. But you may have to look up.

Union Square doesn't have a lot of skyscrapers, but it does have many late 19th/early 20th century tall buildings that were the skyscrapers of their time. Retail shop remodeling on the ground floors has robbed some of the buildings' original details, but if you look up, the story is awfully entertaining and elegant. It's remarkable to see the practical application of the belief that even the skyscrapers-of-their-time should display the same level of detail that, for example, a highboy should. But you can't see this - unless you lookup. So I spent an afternoon a morning wandering around looking up.

These buildings aren't being cited as unique. They're actually pretty typical. In many cases these late 19th, early 20th century smallish skyscrapers are about taking an 18th or 19th century model and simply making it bigger. The commonness and frequency of the beauty is what's remarkable.

The pictures below are of the west side of Broadway in a stretch between 16th and 23rd Streets. This area was known as the "Ladies' Mile" during the Gilded Age because it was home to Lord & Taylor, B. Altman, Arnold Constable, and many other high-end department stores that catered to women, and developed a name as an area that was - very unusually - safe for women to go shopping unaccompanied by men. According to the New York Preservation Archive Project, the area's mix of aesthetically pleasing Beaux-Arts, Neo-Renaissance, Romanesque Revival, and Queen Anne style buildings was a "direct reflection of the City Beautiful Movement," a reformist movement of the era that also brought grandeur to other parts of Manhattan and to Washington DC and other cities.

Originally the Arnold Constable dry goods store, this 1869 building on 19th Street has a mansard roof, which is both awesome and very Addams Family-esque.
Looking north on Broadway from 17th Street, up the Ladies' Mile. The smaller, older buildings still have their decorative cornices.
A closeup of one of the buildings from the previous picture
Another closeup - simple, but it gets the point across. Now the longtime home of Paragon Sports, Manhattan's largest sporting goods store
901 Broadway was built in 1870 as a home for Lord & Taylor. This remaining corner pavilion features a tall slate mansard roof in the the French Second Empire style.
A tour-de-force of cornice carving! It's on the NW corner of 20th Street and Broadway.
At the SW corner of 17th and Union Sq. West. I could not find much info on this awesome bit of decoration. Note the guys on scaffolding, doing work on the homely building next door.
On the right is the Decker Building. Built in 1892, it was the home of Decker Brothers Piano Company. More famously, between 1968-73 it was home of Andy Warhol's Factory

I was pleasantly surprised that the Museum of Modern Art was open on July 4th, when it was a million degrees in my apartment and most other activities were closed for the holiday. I figured the museum would at least have good air conditioning. Evidently I was not the only one with this idea. The place was fairly crowded, with art lovers and natives and World Cup tourists alike.

One of the high points of the visit was seeing furniture made by Frederick Kiesler (18901965) an architect who immigrated to the US from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 1920s. Although Kiesler didn't have much of an impact commercially in furniture design, he did design some important buildings and some landmark furniture.

The Kiesler work shown here are the original Surrealist-inspired "Multi-Use Chairs" that Kiesler designed in 1942 for Peggy Guggenheim's "Art of This Century" gallery in New York. The chairs are made of linoleum clad oak. The original materials bill was $9 each. Depending on how you flipped or stacked the chairs, each unit could also serve as a rocker, table, bench, sculpture pedestal, easel, or painting support. Kiesler claimed 18 distinct uses (which might be hyperbole, as the show included no official list). The idea is that depending on the gallery and the usage, you could reconfigure the same furniture for different uses.

How practical or comfortable these pieces are I have no idea - the museum did not welcome visitors to take a load off their feet. I don't know if the materials used - Oak and Linoleum - were chosen because of ideological commitment to the Bauhaus movement's veneration of common materials, or if Kiesler was being practical and frugal and therefore took some solid oak flooring (that looks like it was repurposed from something else) and some linoleum was just handy, fit the budget, and got his point about form and function across. Nine bucks for materials even in 1942 was not a lot of money. These days I would think the end caps would be fancy plywood, with fancy bent veneer instead of linoleum for the sides. And at a hundred times the cost.

The pieces are too modern for Ikea. (The market for really ground breaking shapes and forms is pretty small.) And they are certainly not what Ikea specializes in (cheaply made versions of Scandinavian / Mid-century modern) but I could easily imagine something like these pieces in a modern apartment. They'd offer a comfortable conversation piece, if nothing else. Unfortunately I couldn't find any drawings of how this thing is put together. AI bot Claude said that a 1942 original in the Brooklyn Museum (not at MoMA) measures 29 1/8" 30 1/2" 15 5/8".

What's important is that 84 years after their introduction, the pieces still look modern and avant-garde, and a striking departure from what most people imagine when you say the word "furniture." And more importantly: the work isn't an evolution of an existing design vocabulary, much less a stop on a recognizable tour of furniture design movement with Colonial, Shaker, Arts & Crafts, mid-century Modern/Danish modern/Ikea, etc. It really is a new approach. They are wildly original.

The lesson for all of us is that our design approach and what we build are always influenced by our training, budget, and history. Coming up with anything good that is also actually new is hard. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. But at the same time, recognize your influences. It is perfectly excellent to design something where you take a known design and push it into something you like, with better construction, materials, and more appropriate design for the intended space. But it's also worthwhile to occasionally go all the way out to left field, and pluck a design from space.



You see what I mean about repurposed materials