Looking Backwards and Forwards: Fennomane Furniture Design in Finland around 1900

Author: Ashby, Charlotte

Source: The Journal of Modern Craft, Volume 1, Number 2, July 2008 , pp. 181-196(16)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

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Abstract:

This article examines the furniture designs produced in response to competitions for Finnish style furniture in the 1890s and competitions for furniture for the Finnish worker in the 1900s. The earlier material is used to trace the National Style's relationship to Finnish vernacular crafts and ethnographic research alongside its relationship to international sources and the idea of progress. The later material is used to illustrate the shift in these relationships that saw a decline of interest in an overt vernacularist National Style but not a decline in commitment to design reform within a firmly Finnish context. The article thus serves to broaden the framework within which the Finnish National Style is understood, going beyond the idea of National Romanticism to develop a clearer picture of its place within the heterogeneous character of turn-of-the-century design reform.

Keywords: FINLAND; NATIONAL STYLE; ARTS AND CRAFTS; NATIONAL ROMANTICISM; VERNACULAR CRAFTS; FURNITURE; DESIGN REFORM; 1900

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.2752/174967808X325497

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