Furniture as Emotional Archive writing J E N N A S C H N I T Z L E R furniture design M A R I N A P E N G
a list of objects — ceramic townhouse
coiled rope box
drafting table with a wobbly leg
kitty ring holder
skinny ladder shelf
tiny floral armchair
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inding, making, and using furniture and objects becomes an intimate exercise as we grow up. We collect them from family, friends, and strangers in the creation of our spaces —nesting and layering pieces with varied histories that otherwise would not have met. Strangers become family when combined in a home – opa’s bedside table would never have met MÅLM if you hadn’t brought them together in your most personal space.
Combining materiality and functionality with storytelling, furniture (new and old) acts as an archive that preserves memory. Furniture complements our lives and supports us as story-makers—holding, saving, and remembering stories that we might otherwise forget. We rarely account for the function of furniture beyond supporting our daily patterns, those daily patterns that become imprinted on our objects quite literally through wear. Less visible are our associations with these objects, able to capture the spirit of squeezing into the same chair to read with your sister, or smelling the bindings of your first few books on the shelf. Furniture is passed down as a history of its own, not so different from oral, written, or sung stories shared by a culture. A familial culture is created through the generational use of these objects, gaining scratches and new imprints with each passing owner, and a composite culture is generated as we seek furniture with stories separate from our own. The joy in finding vintage or used furniture is in the mystery of the previous users and our ability to imagine the life a sofa has lived before coming into ours.
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Projecting and imagining these stories has its own magic—we are able to curate a spatial narrative in our homes that lives between reality and our imagination. Homemaking, in the most modern sense of the word, has become the process of selectively choosing what we live in, what we see everyday, finding furniture and objects that make our inhabited spaces feel like home. An important part of this process, now, is the design of highly functional and expressive contemporary furniture. An admiration of furniture grows from the appreciation of how physical surroundings interplay with our everyday, and the creation of special, useful objects to facilitate living. And in this interaction, the art of designing furniture has its place. Making furniture has always been, and continues to be, an incredible art form and outlet for hand making. Creating functional and beautiful furniture is not based only in aesthetics, but true usefulness - there is extreme beauty in creating furniture that needs no explanation or instruction, that fits the body perfectly and has a clear use. Sloping the seat of a chair just so, making an armrest the perfect height, defending against wobbles, making furniture to be incredibly useful is often far from the mind of the user.
