Annotated Research Summary

Curtis Mohrhardt

Kirsten White & Vanessa Jackson

October 10, 2019

Windsor Philosophy: A Chair’s Values

Through countless hours of research I have come to a conclusion: the Windsor chair was, at its surface, a mask for my desire to understand the value of durable furniture. Likewise with philosophy, my interest in morality, value and principles are all surface level ideas that hide my real fascination; of someone, something, possibly even furniture, living forever and becoming idealized. “One of the rarest gifts to man, is the fond appreciation belonging to an acute sensibility to the influence of beauty, while still more rare is the possession of those qualities of appreciation, combined with the ability to impress upon inanimate matter the forms of beauty, manifesting the existence of mind” (Palmer, 18). How can my furniture embody eternity in its form and identity for future generations to admire?

The core of my research lay within the Windsor chair (history, value, tradition, principles, etc.), and the philosophy of the ideal. Within the Windsor chair tradition there lays a profound wealth of knowledge for understanding wood as workable material. My fascination comes from its incredibly long history, which began in the late 17th century and early 18th century. There are dozens of theories as to how the chairs came about. Before the name marked the distinct chair form, “a well-defined stool of stick construction first occurs in the art of Ancient Egypt […] artefacts from the tombs of kings and commoners alike in the Eighteenth Dynasty (c.1567 – 1320 B.C.) indicate a more than occasional use of the simple, socketed stool” (Evans, 24). The style of Windosr likely goes back to the even 12th century. In John Brown’s book Welsh Stick Chairs he presents a crude drawing from the 12th century where a person is sitting on a stick chair. These chairs had splayed turned legs, steam bent curved back, carved seat, and spindles. I can only hazard a guess – as my research has turned up no results regarding the Windsor form existing before the 1700’s – that the Windsor form is as old as the stick chair. Many designers remain in the traditional bubble the chair represents, keeping to all of its unique characteristics.

The ideal is the embodiment of specific qualities of human nature in a form. The goal is to accomplish the unifying of the Windsor and its ideal. The ideal is what is looked up to, perfection, which means there is a Windsor form that is closest to the ideal chair. “Nothing is so essential to the [maker]’s success as a clear knowledge of the beautiful, or the capability of the just appreciation of the nature of the difference between that which is really beautiful and that which is nearly so” (Palmer, 18). Its joinery, aesthetic, form and composition can reach beyond where it stands now; the beginning of a new set of principles and values for the Windsor vernacular. In conjunction with this task I will be able to extract these ideal characteristics from the Windsor and apply them to forms other than the chair itself.

To explore what is ideal I must start by deconstructing the form into categories of its characteristics. For longevity of the chair the joinery must be better than what it currently is. With the advancement of mass production some important techniques were forgotten in the Windsor construction. “When you look at a lot of old furniture, you are more likely to see straight tenons than tapered ones. Why? I suspect the answer has to do with tooling. To make a straight mortise and tenon all you need is a hole-making tool (auger, drill etc.)” (Schulz).

· Tapered mortise and tenon (leg to seat joinery):

• As the chair is sat in the tapered tenon compresses further into the tapered mortise.

• The joint is tight, but with constant tightening the chair remains under tension rather than relying on just a tight joint and glue.

· Spoon bit mortise and tenon (spindles to seat joinery):

• A spoon bit is a drill bit that has a rounded cutting edge. Auger and drill bits require the tips cutting extra wood in the hole that does not help the joinery. The bottom of the spoon bit hole is round and when a spindle is rounded to the exact shape of the hole it creates a joint that is very difficult to separate (before gluing).

· Drilling by hand (stretchers to legs, spindles to seat & crest rail)

• Every joint is drilled using a hand drill and I believe that is how the chairs can remain strong for so long. Drilling by hand offers some discrepancy to how accurate the joint, which in turn allows the chair to remain under tension once fully assembled.

To bring the Windsor form into a contemporary setting I will have to separate, and focus on the most important few characteristics. The main focus within my capstone is to design and construct a Windsor form that pushes the style in a new direction, while simultaneously using the joinery techniques that have been used on these chairs since before the 18th century. My methodology will be the exploration of these joinery techniques as well as steam bending. To get the most strength out of the wood I must steam bend them. Keeping the wood fibres intact and having no glue lines (like in bent laminations) will add to the overall strength and aesthetic to the piece.

In a contemporary context the two big names that I have been following, and reading, are Bern Chandley, from Australia, and James Mursell, from the United Kingdom. Mursell takes a much more traditional approach, in his designs, where Chandley tries to push the envelope with his newer contemporary pieces. Both, however, maintain the traditional construction methods. There is no use of computerised machines or software; everything is done by hand and eye. I want to push the form and vernacular to its limits, and see if I can add something of value to the already immense amounts of variations on this historic chair.

My research consisted of delving into the idea of the Windsor chair, its history, construction and the science behind the wood and joinery used. To expand a bit further, than just the physical aspects of the chair, I have thought about what makes the chair great, and what, hypothetically, does the chair strive to be?

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Evans, Nancy Goyne. “A History and Background of English Windsor Furniture” Furniture History, vol. 15, 1979, pp. 24–53. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23405044 .

The only document I could find, so far, about how the Windsor got to be what it is. Why turned, rounded parts, why wedged into the seat? The journal mentions ancient Egyptians, Pharaohs having stools, with rounded legs that are wedged from the top. The construction of the Windsor was likely borne from these ancient stools. It is also easier to create a mortise that is round than is square, hence the parts being turned.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy of Furniture.” Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, May 1840.

A short essay on the importance of furniture to a room and how the Americans were pioneers of using furniture to enhance rooms. Just a fun essay by Edgar Allan Poe that was written during the Windsor chair's prime (1700's - 1850's).

Rendi, James. “Why Handcrafted.” Windsor Chair Resources, http://www.windsorchairresources.com/rendi.html.

A list of all the joinery that is used within the Windsor chair, and a detailed explanation of their strengths, and importance to a chairs life. The strength of this article is in the detail of what tools to use and where to find them. They have lee valley linked to the tools they mentioned which helps with potentially locating tools for my thesis.

Schwarz, Christopher. “Tapered vs. Cylindrical Tenons.” Popular Woodworking Magazine, Popular Woodworking Magazine, 21 June 2018, https://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodworking-blogs/tapered-vs-cylindrical-tenons/.

The purpose of and connection between a Windsor chair and its strongest joinery, the tapered wedged mortise and tenon. This article convinced me of the importance of this joinery for a Windsor chair's longevity. I will be using this technique in all my designs to allow my furniture to be the strongest it can potentially be.

Salati, Sammy. “Curious Objects: Secret History of a Windsor Chair.” The Magazine Antiques, 5 Jan. 2018, https://themagazineantiques.com/article/secret-history-of-the-windsor-chair/.

A typed out podcast episode where a Windsor chair from the company Gillows, chair style produced between 1796-1806, is examined and the history of the company and their furniture is explained. This article was chosen more for its incredible story of a Windsor chair manufacturer and how the chairs from the late 1700's are still sought after.

Parrott, Observations on the earliest known Windsor chairs, Regional Furniture, XIX (2005), pp. 1-19

This brief essay is an accurate placement of where the "Windsor" name began. In the early 1720's the first Windsor was born and from there the style exploded in England and from there, seeped into the every day life of American woodworkers. Like other historical articles I found, this one is only the history of the name, not the style of furniture. I still want to know where it started and when. How far back it goes and how it evolved over centuries or even millennia. It is still valuable information to know in my research, where the name originated.

Mursell, James. Windsor Chairmaking. Crowood Press, 2009.

An in depth history, technique and fabrication guide to building Windsor chairs. This book spans many old techniques, such as: the tapered mortise and tenon legs, octagonal tenons in round mortise, steam bending, turning, reaming, etc. This book will be vital to my attempts at constructing my own chair with these old joinery techniques.

Brown, John. Welsh Stick Chairs. Linden Pub., 1993.

This book is a history of and tutorial of how to fabricate a Welsh stick chair. I read the book for the history portion in the intro. A detailed description of chair history, although vague, dating back to the 12th century. These chairs have been around for centuries and Brown goes through his process of cutting down the trees all the way to fitting and finishing. The steam bent portion of the chairs are very close to the Windsor form, but no connections are made between the two.

Kaufmann, Walter Arnold, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Vintage Books, 2011.

A roller coaster of a book. Nietzsche took every major thought of his career condensed them into this short book. The book deals with philosophers, educators, artists, religion, and those who believe in nothing. A critic of great intellectual force.

Palmer, E. D. “Philosophy of the Ideal.” The Crayon, vol. 3, no. 1, 1856, pp. 18–20. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25527361.

A brief article written in 1856 where the author tries to understand what the ideal means and where it comes from. An example would be painters painting the ideal of beauty, in their mind they paint what they consider to be the most beautiful.