The objects that shaped how we live and work.
Twelve researched histories of furniture, told through materials, construction, manufacturing and professional practice.
Furniture history for people who make, specify, sell and restore it.
Every article begins with a recognisable piece and follows the forces that changed it: available materials, production technology, social rituals, trade and the changing needs of the body. The result is history with practical value for today’s furniture professional.
Ancient Egyptian Furniture: The Foundations of Joinery
Long before furniture became an industry, Egyptian makers had developed structural principles that remain recognisable at the workbench today.
02Antiquity–20th centurySeats of Power: How Thrones, Stools and Chairs Created Authority
Seating has never been neutral. Across cultures, the right to sit—and the form of the seat—has made hierarchy visible.
03Medieval–modernFrom Chest to Cabinet: How Storage Furniture Specialised
The journey from the portable coffer to modular cabinetry records changing rooms, possessions, trades and patterns of domestic life.
041368–1644Ming Furniture and the Intelligence of the Joint
Classical Chinese furniture joins material, structure and proportion so closely that construction becomes the design language.
051600–1800From Court Cabinetmaker to Global Luxury Brand
Royal workshops, specialist trades and published designs created a furniture economy built on authorship, rarity and reputation.
0617th century–todayThe Sofa Story: How Upholstery Changed the Way We Sit
The sofa is a layered technology: frame, suspension, filling and cover combine to shape comfort, posture and social behaviour.
071830s–1912Thonet No. 14 and the Birth of Flat-Pack Furniture
Steam-bent beech, divided labour and compact shipping turned a chair into a global industrial product.
081860–1914Arts and Crafts: The First Great Debate About Mass Production
William Morris and his circle asked whether industrial abundance was worth the human and aesthetic cost of bad work.
091918–1930sThe Cantilever Chair: When Steel Rewrote the Rules of Seating
Tubular steel removed the rear legs, exposed the load path and turned a chair into a manifesto for the machine age.
101850s–1950sPlywood Goes to War—and Comes Home as Furniture
Layered veneers moved from an inexpensive board to a mouldable engineering material that defined organic modernism.
111940s–1970sThe Plastic Chair Revolution: One Material, One Continuous Form
Polymers promised colour, affordability and forms liberated from traditional joinery—then left the industry with a new end-of-life problem.
121840s–todayFrom Typist’s Chair to Ergonomic Task System
Office seating evolved with clerical work, computers and a growing understanding that one fixed posture cannot serve every body or task.