Wood, Glorious Wood – Our Ongoing Obsession with Natural Materials in Interior Design
We’re all connoisseurs here, right? We all keep our eyes on material innovations and developments in architecture and interior design. And, yet, as remodeling obsessives, we nevertheless can’t get away from the fact that, of all the materials out there, good old-fashioned wood continues to hold a special place in our hearts. So, what is it about this wonderful product of the earth that makes it so homely, even within the most luxurious, hyper-modern interiors?
Since the dawn of civilisation, people have been using wood to furnish their homes. Archaeologists have revealed that, as far back as 30,000 years ago, people of style, taste and, well, plain old necessity were whittling, carving and sculpting stuff to sit on and stuff to put stuff in from wood. Seemed like a good idea at the time and, like all great leaps forward in human enterprise, it was.
Of course, complicated procedures like joinery didn’t kick-in until a good few millennia later and the first examples we see come from the early dynastic period of Ancient Egypt, around 5,000 years ago. Skip ahead to the first three quarters of the 20th Century and, in the boldness of Bauhaus, you find the roots of Mid-Century Modernist furniture and the inspiration for much of today’s minimalist wooden furniture, the like of which sets hearts a-fluttering in Interior Design practices the world over, not least here in the UK where planed surfaces and sharp edges denote the height of sophistication and luxury.
When it comes to wood, we all would
Wood is malleable and mushable. It’s colourful and carvable. You can make dovetail joints that slot beautifully together with it. You can glue it into plywood to stop it from splitting and to reduce shrinkage. You can even chip its offcuts into a million tiny pieces, squish them all back together into medium-density fibreboard (or MDF as it’s better known) and still make something useful and beautiful out of it. The reason we’re still using wood in 2019? Are you kidding? It grows from the earth, it’s biodegradable, we can burn it when it’s broken and add roughage to our compost with it. When it comes to wood, we all would.
Now, as technological solutions dominate our world to ever greater degrees, people are increasingly seeking connections from nature. And wood fits the bill just perfectly. Well, it goes with everything, doesn’t it? Bring all the robotics and automation into your home as you like. Let the internet of things make everything from your freeview recorder to your central heating fully programmable from a thousand miles away, if you want. So long as there’s a bit of wood in there, your house will always feel that little bit more Lord of the Rings and that little bit less Star Trek. And even the stiffest of sophisticates among us have a little bit of Bilbo Baggins hiding in there somewhere, don’t we? (Why would they call our mannerisms ‘wooden’ if not?)
Whether you’re about nuts about Nordic, raving about retro fusion or mad about maximalism, the right piece of wooden furniture will help you to carve out the perfect piece of individualism your home deserves. Wood isn’t so much back. It just never went away.