Joel's Blog

The Designer Furniture District

09/25/2024

Madison Avenue between 27th and 34th Street in Manhattan, just north of Madison Square Park, is a high end furniture district, with the ground floors of most large buildings hosting the showrooms of (mostly) European furniture designers and manufacturers. Interior decorators come here to buy furniture of the latest style for their well healed clients. If you appreciate traditional furniture and traditional craft, you'll probably be struck how similar most of the pieces are to the furniture of Ikea, albeit a better, fancier version of Ikea. The colors are more interesting, and certainly the materials are better, the workmanship is better, and the collections typically include soft and rounded pieces, whereas Ikea favors the rectangular. But the furniture not only looks like Ikea's but is also remarkably similar to the items in the next store over.
The Designer Furniture District 2

Professional furniture makers: this is your real competition. While most of our professional customers are in the architectural woodworking business, we do have a fair number of furniture makers. Their issue isn't building the furniture. Their issue is finding customers. The reason this district is important is that it reflects the mainstream approach of interior decorators regarding how to furnish an upscale office or an apartment. The designs do not necessarily include objects carefully made of wood. The designs show a remarkable simplicity and lack of detail and interest. And this furniture is not inexpensive. Obviously there are customers and designers who like traditional work, detail, and complexity -- but they are not part of the mainstream. For every commissioned a sixteen foot conference table made by one of our customers, a dozen smaller tables from these shops are sold. Architectural woodworking is by definition customized for a specific site. But once the walls and built-ins are done, most clients opt for stock furniture, unless as in the case of a sixteen foot long conference table, the furniture doesn't exist through normal channels.
The pictures BTW are in no particular order.

The Designer Furniture District 5

Not really to my taste but at least these chairs, while of a standard industrial design, are distinctive in material and looks.

Note: If you happen to be walking on the street and you see very well dressed tall very attractive women being photographed chances are you have stumbled across a model shoot. This one was pretty tame with only one assistant.

Join the conversation

09/25/2024 Michael Rodgers

This is so different from the world in which I live--Central Texas--but I really enjoy your articles. I agree with your comments regarding the chairs--not to my taste either but at least they are different. It always amazes me that people with money are subject to the same fads and fashions as are people without money. Thanks for another insightful article.

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The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the blog's author and guests and in no way reflect the views of Tools for Working Wood.

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