The current project that I am working on in university is a furniture based project. In a group of 3 we have to come up with a furniture design and manufacture it in the workshop, to bring our design to life. The first 2 weeks of the project were mainly research based, for us to look into previous furniture and learn as much as we could. During this time it started to make me think about the value of furniture and how it has changed.
Above, for example, are 2 classic Victorian style pieces of furniture. They are made from strong mahogany with bright and very durable upholstering. They were designed and built to last for years upon years and would have been quite expensive to purchase. However, in this modern age, How many pieces of furniture like these do you see produced?? The answer is not very many. Today we don't want strong, bulky furniture that we can't look forward to changing in a couple of years time. We would rather go to IKEA and buy cheaper furniture that will maybe last a couple of years (if even), that we don't have to really worry about looking after. If something happens to it or it were to break, it's easy enough to replace and this thought along with the one that it wasn't that expensive anyway, seems to make buying cheaper, less durable furniture more appealing.
A sofa bought maybe 30 years ago would have lasted a family the guts of those 30 years, with a few re-upholsters throughout that time. A sofa bought today will last around 3 to 4 years, if your lucky, and then it needs replaced.
In my eyes the values of furniture has vastly decreased over the years and it has shown that the lifestyles of humans and the way they think has greatly changed.
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