Spark visits vanguard furniture maker Garry Knox Bennett at work as he produces the last in a series of fifty chairs for an upcoming exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California. This Educator Guide addresses the history of art furniture.
Furniture making is in many ways like bridge building, connections holding posts apart with spans to support a deck. Many architects have tried their hand at furniture design, Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Aalto, Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Gerhy. We will review the history of furniture making in America with a visit to the Decorative Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have Cambridge artist/craftsman Mitch Ryerson show us his work and talk about design process. Students will learn traditional woodworking techniques beginning with the use of hand tools, power tools and finally woodworking machines. Students will build a single piece of furniture of an original design that must support someone weighing 185 lbs. sitting on it 12 inches off the ground made primarily of wood. Students should expect to spend approximately 80 hours in the shop outside of class time. Preregistered architecture students will get first priority but first meeting attendance is mandatory. Twelve student maximum, no exceptions.
Selection of MIT OpenCourseWare content intended to stretch your creativity by learning how to build new things. See courses in action for Practical Electronics, Furniture Making, Building Landscapes, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Special Effects, Water Jet Technologies, and Toy Product Design.
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