Artisan Crafted Contemporary

Artisan Crafted Contemporary styling traces the rich expression of past woodworkers' and metalsmiths' artistry, helping designers get beyond the modern minimalistic kitchens of today. It incorporates the concept of woodworking as an artist's expression of beauty, leading to unique hand-carved architectural elements in new spaces. Kitchens in this style feature design elements from the past, but translated into a softer Contemporary styling.

Four major historical design periods are linked to these Artisan Crafted, one-of-a-kind Contemporary spaces: North American Shaker/Pacific Rim Japanese, West Coast Craftsman Arts & Crafts, European Empire/ Biederman and Art Deco.

North American Shaker design has a lot in common with Pacific Rim Japanese design. Japanese design impacted both English and American Arts & Crafts styles. West Coast Craftsman, as reflected in Mission design and the bungalows dotting the West Coast, is a style deviation worth understanding, as well.

There is also a direct influence from the early 1800s, as the French Empire style led to the more casual Biedermeier style. In the same period, domestic classicism led to beautiful inlaid work in prized furniture pieces. Today's artisans owe a clear debt to these furniture makers, who defined woodworking as a master's skill with gilded and gold-tipped accents.

Lastly, the Roaring '20s Art Deco and 1940s Moderne style, which co-existed with the emerging International School of Architecture, have also contributed to 21st Century Artisan Crafted Contemporary rooms, as seen in the Egyptian influence of forms and figures, as well as metal playing a major role in our current kitchen designs.

SHAKER VS. JAPANESE
Most designers are familiar with the history of the Shaker community. As designers, our interest is not so much in their religious philosophy, but in the products this group created. The unerring beauty of these designs is guided by this Shaker craftsmen vision: "Whether a barn, a basket, or sacred song: if it is not useful or necessary, free yourself from imagining you need to make it. If it is useful and necessary, free yourself from imagining that you need to enhance it by adding what is not an integral part of its useful or necessity. And, finally: if it is both useful and necessary, and you can recognize and eliminate what is not essential, then go ahead and make it as beautiful as you can."

This is similar to the philosophy behind Pacific Rim design.

There was no direct influence of Japanese culture among the Shaker or vice-versa, so how could two vastly different cultures produce similar pieces of woodworking? For both the Japanese craftsmen and the Shakers, form was primarily determined by function. The products of these two are similar because their philosophy about beauty and design is similar. Additionally, both cultures have a high regard for craftsmanship.

One of the best links between Shaker and Japanese style is exemplified by the work of American George Nakashima (1905 1990). Nakashima, born in Seattle of Japanese parents, trained as an architect and artisan in Paris and India, described his work as "Japanese Shaker."

His admired tables are book matched and characterized by slabs of free-edged wood. There is a frank display of joinery and a celebration of the wood grain, which is echoed in the Shakers' use of tiger stripe and bird's-eye figures in the wood selected for furniture pieces. The functional simplicity of overall design exposed dovetail corners, a butterfly key connecting wood sections with no attempt made to file the mismatched center joint, and the use of solid woods reflect Shaker and Japanese influences.