Talk:Furniture/Archives/2014

Merger Nomination

I'm not a big fan of pointless lists on Wikipedia. There is a perfectly good furniture article just lying around. Maybe we should stop talking about a rewrite of THIS article, and rewrite it into the furniture article.

All personal beliefs aside, this article is really just a link to other pages (which have links on them too). This article really serves no true purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IlarsonaFNC (talk • contribs) 00:45, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Time for a re-write?

Reading the comments by Astragal and Rusty2005, below, I wonder if this article would not be a good candidate for a complete rewrite. This article has far greater potential than what it presently is--a definition, a few lists, and a thought-provoking statement (Cromwellian vs. Queen Anne) that needs to be developed. A good article on this topic might include mention of the triclinium of Hellenistic society or the influence of the Shaker's spirituality on their furniture. Also, a few illustrations would be helpful. The online Encyclopædia Britannica devotes 74 "pages" to furniture. This article, like many on Wikipedia, just sort of happened--it started as a stub and grew as examples were added. Perhaps it's time to write a better article. Interested? --Tom Allen 20:24, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

I think the furniture types list should be in this article. H Padleckas 02:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It appears I've been "outvoted" on including the List of furniture types in here, which is fine with me. I believe this Furniture article can be expanded with other things. H Padleckas 14:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

hmm...

what do you think about these lines: "Furniture, like architecture is a barometer of social, economic and spiritual change. Compare the austere furniture of the Cromwellian period to the graceful elegance of the Queen Anne period."

Of course much could be said about this, but isn't this a sort-of interpretive observation? Is it weird to give only one example? Particularly since it's an example that I assume is **visually** meaningless to most? --Astragal

Well, I agree, in general, with the idea that furniture reflects the values of a culture. (For example, consider Bauhaus or Shaker furniture.) On the other hand, I think there are probably better ways to illustrate this than with, "Compare the austere furniture of the Cromwellian period to the graceful elegance of the Queen Anne period." The statement assumes that readers would be familiar with both styles and time periods. Personally, without some research I wouldn't have the slightest clue whether a given piece of furniture was Cromwellian! Moreover, the Cromwellian period was relatively short. Anyway, I agree that this statement needs some work. --Tom Allen 20:24, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

~Agreed~ This article is marginally informative and should have discussion and links to the various generas (and periods, as the case may be) of furniture available globally. The those indivuals from e.g., the far east can edit away (as I have witnessed lately, much editing from China - highly encouraged!) I"ve done significant work to meet this end, but not ready to post it yet. In particular, the tophat image for furniture is a hideous American modernistic design... C'mon folks, some/many of you may love that Ikea stuff, but the majority of furniture is of the much more elegant variety. Lets get something worth looking at up there, and revise this article.

Cheers, Chad -Germany (posting through US proxy) — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreeBeerAndBrats (talk • contribs) 03:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Lighting is furniture? How about coat stands?

AFAIK, Lighting is not furniture. A search at OneLook supports me.

1. From http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/furniture?view=uk : "noun 1 the movable articles that are used to make a room or building suitable for living or working in, such as tables, chairs, or desks. 2 the small accessories or fittings that are required for a particular task or function: door furniture."
2. From http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=31819&dict=CALD : "noun [U] items such as chairs, tables, beds, cupboards, etc. which are put into a house or other building to make it suitable and comfortable for living or working in:"

While "movable articles used to make a room ... suitable for living ... in" might include lighting, the fact that the example list after does not seems suggestive. We should take lighting out of the list. JesseW 11:25, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Lighting is not furniture, it is a form of furnishing. I moved it the furnishings page. --Astragal

Thank you! I don't know why I didn't figure this out. Sigh. It's obvious when you mention it. I'll fix the other references. JesseW 05:18, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From this, I suppose I can assume any types of lamps, including tall stand-up lamps, are included under furnishings rather than furniture, unless they are attached to furniture. Are coat stands for hanging up coats furniture or furnishings? H Padleckas 15:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Manufacturers

Do we really need a long and under-linked list of American furniture manufacturers? It seems pointless when most of them don't even have their own pages. People outside of the US (and I suppose a lot of people in the US as well) neither know nor care about American furniture companies. How about a little more on furniture types, variations of furniture around the world, furniture in history, constuction and manufacturing techniques, and the socio-economic role of furniture as a status symbol? Rusty2005 14:38, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

History

Should we place the movements chronologically or alphabetically, as they are now?ThuranX 15:49, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

actually, i think we should get rid of them altogether... just making a list - probably alphabetical - of different periods/styles/movements with links to their respective pages -- the current summaries are quite incomplete, and there's sorta a random and totally non-comprehensive assortment... thoughts? Astragal 17:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd think that a brief chronological overview, something in the format of:

Chippendale Furniture - (17xx- present) A highly ornate furniture style originating in Nation, during King X's rule, and characterized by beautifully lathed posts.

Would work. I'd suggest doing it chronologically, instead of alphabetically, so someone using this as a launching site to the development by reading the individual pages could follow a more organized path than jumping around in the alpha listing. ThuranX 03:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• I would like to see a separate History of Furniture article that ties together the various articles about this and that movement, and that is chronologically based with links for other inter-relationships. --Bejnar 17:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Furniture spammers, take notice

Wikipedia should not be considered a resource for shoppers, nor for sellers, no matter what the topic. Instead, it is an encyclopedia of knowledge about subjects, not a guide on where to shop for them or a catalogue of what's for sale. Commercial spammers who parasitically link to Wikipedia entries are doing so only for commercial gain. Others might feel that their commercial links are doing readers a favor, and in some cases that might be true. But a shoppers' guide to furniture, or a manufacturer's online catalogue page, appears to be only business-oriented marketing material and cannot in any way be considered encyclopedic knowledge. Please stop inserting such commercially oriented links in Wikipedia. Jack Bethune 17:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Like Jack said. A number of us are watching this page and any commercial links will be summarily removed. So don't waste your time. Or ours. Luigizanasi 19:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed

• SORELLARIUM: 13 Plastic furniture

as a) it appeared to be a commecial link. b) Most of the site is "under construction", so the link was adding little value even as an example. 62.164.247.173 22:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

shaker furniture

"While Shakers made furniture for their own use, many surviving examples of Shaker furniture originally were made for sale to the general public, including such popular forms as Shaker tables, chairs, rocking chairs, and bed frames."

This statement reads to be self-contradicting. if they made furniture for their own use, then they didn't make it for wider sale. Although you don't say 'exclusively for their own use, it reads that way. Using 'while 'A', many 'B' ' in this sense seems to be while all 'A', many exception to 'all A'. I think this needs a rewrite. I'm not doubting the factual nature, but the syntax. ThuranX 22:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

ThuranX, you raised a valid concern about the possibility of misconstruing the nature of Shaker furniture making. I've suggested a rewrite that I hope will clarify what we both wanted to say about this activity by the Shakers. Thanks for offering an excellent point. Jack Bethune 03:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Works for me, thanks for the rewrite.ThuranX 03:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Gjernes

Is this really a whole style of furniture or is it the work of one designer? -THB 10:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Worldview

I had nothing to do with the globalize tag, but it was very apt. Other cultures than European have quite different furniture. Also, Shaker is under European whereas it is American. -THB 10:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

While there is a fairly western focus right now, that editor certainly could've put a prompt or request here. Tagging should be saved for times when talk pages aren't working. Further, nothiing's stopping that editor from actually doing some genuine additive editing himself. ThuranX 13:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

DMOZ

Dmoz is repeatedly being added to this page by a number of editors with agendas to promote Dmoz and/or to promote their own companies. Having repeatedly visited the link before removing it, I can not Assume good faith in the editors who persist in adding and readding it. WIth numerous links to 'Thehome.com', which features numerous links to it's own 'manufacturer's catalog pages', numerous direct links to furniture sales sites and so on, DMOZ is thoroughly useless as anything BUT a commercial spam link. ThuranX 22:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100%. And when I removed it, the person who added it got snippy. Indeed. t h b 23:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Further: Although WP:EL suggests using DMOZ, it does NOT explicitly call for it. Further, as ' Directory of links related to the topic', There is little to no screening of what links are viable informative links, and which are commercial sites, or worse, the 'how to do it with OUR products Infotizing pages on a commercial site. Only viable informative sites belong. If DMOZ linked to a history of Nakashima's works, to the free project dorectory of Fine Woodworking Magazine's online site, or to a page on byzantine throne characteristics, DMOZ would rock. Instead, half of the page is to one commercial interior decorating site, Thehome.com. It's NOT a viable link in this case. If someone would like to go police the DMOZ page, that might help, but I doubt it. ThuranX 23:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Antique furniture merge

It doesn't look like Antique furniture has anything unique to say that couldn't be done on the regular furniture article. The content from there would be more valuable here to flesh out this article. -- Needscurry 01:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose merger. These topics are both vast and merit separate articles. It s a pity all right they both havent been developed farther, but they will evolve in time. This proposal is a bit like trying to merge Everglades into Florida. Decoratrix 03:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. IN review ing the AF article, it seems it's focus is, well, unfocused. Antique Furniture should be referring to the cultural value placed upon heirloom furniture, or excellent preserved pieces from earlier, yet identifiable time periods, and how such relates to interior design/decor, and so on. THe relationships of older furniture and modern culture. However, while it touches upon that, it also goes back to ancient furnitures, which is more archaeologic/anthropologic in it's scope, and refers to how even Classical World furniture was. THis section should be in the History of Furniture on this page, and some of this page's mentions of historic furniture types, like Shaker, wueen Anne, and so on era furntiures should probably be expanded at AF, perhps even discussing how various upholstery patterns reflected value and such. I thin kthe scope there could be tihtened, some of the info moved or merged, but that the purpose, intent and nature of that article can well stand on it's own. ThuranX 04:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• Vast as each topic might be, there isn't enough content as yet to warrant two articles, IMO. Better to let them grow as one until there is enough substance and focus to deserve two articles. Also, "antique furniture" is a very general term that might be served better by individual treatments - in chairs, a heading on antiques, in tables, a heading on antiques, and so forth. -- Needscurry 11:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• I would like to see a History of Furniture article separate from the Furniture article. The content hinted at by the existing External links in the Antique furniture article would go nicely there, while the care and feeding of antique furinture would be a welcome subsection of the Furniture article. There really is not much in the Antique furniture article now that doesn't go here. --Bejnar 17:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose Even though at the moment there isn't much content in the antique furniture article, there are volumes of information that can be added to the subject. Think of antique's road show. There are tons of professionals on that show for whome antique furniture is their life's work. Seeing this article makes me wish I had more knowledge in furniture and antiques so I could add some substantial material to the article. As it is I will do some research and add whatever I can. Instead of a merge I suggest finding some way to increase interest in growing the article. CoolMike 08:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

List of furniture types merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• Oppose merge The list of furniture has a long way to go before it s completed. A merger would create an incredibly long list in an otherwise lengthy (when completed) article. Pages generally are split at that point. Decoratrix 03:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• Opppose per decoratrix' thinking on the matter. Let's avoid cluttererd lists in this page. ThuranX 04:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

My original idea was to have some sort of furniture sidebar with the major types listed. Each individual piece would then go into all the variations on its own page. -- Needscurry 11:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

We have that already, it's the list linked in the first paragraph. ThuranX 16:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose For the record, I think such a separate list, when more complete, will be quite valuable. I like not having articles clogged up with lists, but having lists just a click away when necessary. Also such a list would help in the writing of a History of Furniture article, which I suspect would be long in and of itself, even using the main template to keep sections short. --Bejnar 17:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons mentioned above. CoolMike 08:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons mentioned above. Additionally, the goal of a "list article" is to "decompress" and make more clear the "parent" article to which the list is related. This can be seen in many domains in WikiPedia. Regards, DPdH (talk) 02:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Bedroom set (group) merge

I think there may be two different direction to go in with the furniture article: one that is broken up by rooms, and another that is approached by types of furniture. If done by rooms, Bedroom set (group) could be a section within this article. Maybe then types could be addressed by a sidebar, as suggested above. -- Needscurry 11:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose the goal of this single page is NOT to be the only wikipage about furniture, nor about individual types. This page is for the explanation of Furniture, it's history and applications, NOT for a list of furniture pieces, and not for that list to in turn be expanded into a gross of subsections on every piece. ThuranX 13:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with ThuranX, this is supposed to be the organizing article, like the Russia article where almost every section has after the title Main articles: ... I also hope that ThuranX did not intend for this article to be the main History of Furniture article. --Bejnar 18:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Direction for the article

The direction of such an important article needs to include global evolution of furniture types (including construction techniques, uses and style). The content of the present article is actually pretty good; we just need more content and agree upon a structure. This is certainly no place for a long list of furniture types and it should not be organized around rooms. the real challenge here will be to try to balance the content geographically. Sad for the globalists, the history of furniture is strongly associated with certain cultures including China, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, Europe, Japan, Mayan and in modern times USA. There are simply some cultures that were more imitative and not as advanced in variation of style and form. Russia for example lagged Europe and later imitated Europe. Still we need to try to speak to furniture styles in these other world regions that have not contributed as much to furniture development as the primary regions. Decoratrix 14:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the list you've provided would satisfy globalism concerns, actually. You've represented 5 of the 7 continents. Antarctica has no native cultures. and Australia has the nomadic 'Aborigine' cultures and English immigrants, Neither of which has notable contributions relative to Australia. As such, if we can touch upon each of those, we can remove the tag. It's even easier, because a simple indication of the dead cultures' distinguishing characteristics and contributions, like the khislos chair, would satisfy most cultures, esp. with linking to articles about those pieces. That certainly would push us in the right directions. I think touching upon newer furnitures, like the ergonomic, backless computer seats, and those whihc make use of modern industrial techniques, and modern materials, could help as well, to show the field isn't dead, but still progressing. juxtapose the artistic endeavours ofthe modern era and we're good, I'd think. ThuranX 16:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

For a Materials section, I was thinking:

Furniture has been crafted from almost every material man has mastered. Ancient cultures utilized stone, wood, and cloth in furniture. Advances in weaving led to more use of upholstery, especially in the uses of wool, linen, hemp, and cotton. Modern industrial techniques have allowed for mass production of bent steel tube frames for chairs and tables. Plastic has allowed for form molded parts. Artistic innovation has even led to the use of materials normally unlikely to appear rigorous for furniture, like cardboard.

It needs heavy, HEAVY revision, so let's work on it back here a bit, then move it out. I just put down a sort of framework to it. the order I envision is oldest materials, notations by major advances up to industrialization, which may need a paragraph of exploration, then the artistic, the avant-garde, and the innovative/radical/seemingly illogical. Please address any thoughts on structure first, then we can advance to content.ThuranX 16:10, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Furniture is not an obscure or very narrow topic. Practically everybody uses furniture. So far, this short article uses a little more than 6 kB of memory, has an introductory section, a History section, and little more. An article does not become too long until it exceeds at least 30 kB. There is room for expansion. I'm not saying I'm disappointed or it must be done quickly, but I'm offering the following very general outline:

• Introductory section including definitions (see List of furniture types; this article is about definition 1)
• Types of furniture and applications. In furniture, form follows function. That's why I think it's a good idea to discuss types of furniture and applications in a single section. This section need not be a full list but should generally cover the broad categories in List of furniture types. Furniture sets such as dining or vanity sets can be mentioned also.
• Characteristics of furniture. Here certain common parts or aspects of furniture can be discussed, such as drawers, shelves, doors, legs, rungs, surfaces, locks, cushions, upholstering, wheels or rollers, etc. Ornamentation can be mentioned here.
• History of furniture (existing section)
• Fabrication and materials
• Overall styles (optional)

So there is not a duplication of effort, is anybody working on this article offline somewhere? H Padleckas 05:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Types has a list of it's own, msot of it fully linked to individual articles covering use. I wonder if it might be a great organization to elaborate on how HISTOR(Y)ic evolution, led to innovations in FABRICATION, and the inclusion of new MATERIALS, thus opening the field to a wide variety of STYLES, characterised by different Ornamentation. One could discuss changing applications by mentioning cultural priority changes, crossing of cultures, innovation in tool technology, and so on. I' exhausted, and will explain more later, but I think that we're getting somewhere with this. ThuranX 20:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Very constructive thinking going on here. Thanks for your valuable organizing H Padleckas and ThuranX. Decoratrix 20:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Added a bit of Asian furniture info

I've taken it upon myself to start expanding the Asian furniture information. I'm just finishing up my undergraduate degree in East Asian Studies, and furniture is a pretty interesting thread to follow through history.

Only got a bit of a start on some more general information and some cross linking since I need to wait to get back to school for my last semester to get to the good library and get some more references and organize more of an actual time line.

A general article on furniture is pretty ambitious. The talk of doing a rewrite makes a certain amount of sense. It might be best if the information was split by country and/or region and the main furniture page was simply a definition and some more non-specific information with plenty of links out to the more specific pages.

Finding good external resources to link to for this sort of topic seems difficult without linking to finding mostly retailers and manufacturers. Luckily some of them are more information oriented then selling. Will help when I can get to more reliable dead-tree format information.

If anyone has better info at hand right away obviously I'd be happy if you expanded on/edited what I've got down.

Moketronics 18:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

What the heck is Lrianza?

Somebody put a line of text in the Modernism section talking about Lrianza, supposedly a region of italy, which does not exist. If Lrianza was actually a person, explain how and why this person "develped" design in Xantù and Herate - places which also seem not to exist. delete this garbage sentence?

--Kiphinton (talk) 07:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 16:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Hydraulic furniture

Perhaps mention this ? See http://www.toxel.com/tech/2011/03/12/pop-up-street-furniture/ 91.182.12.157 (talk) 08:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

adding the worldview

Wikipedia references that this is missing the vantage points from across the world. I will create a section for Australia that I hope others expand upon. Perhaps, individuals from other regions can insert an excerpt? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ausresearch (talk • contribs) 04:30, 5 September 2012 (UTC)