The Search for Comfort

 

QUESTION:  I inherited a couch from my grandparents. I have tried to do research online, but the multitude of antique items is overwhelming. The couch appears to resemble the Chippendale style, but not exactly from what I have seen. My grandmother said the couch was already over 100 years old when she purchased it in the 1960's. What can you tell me about this piece? 

ANSWER: Sorry to say, but someone gave your grandmother misinformation about her couch. It’s not uncommon for dealers in used furniture to do this because they really don’t know how old the pieces they’re selling are and just want to sell them.

This couch dates from the 1920s or 1930s. It’s a great example of pseudo styles that manufacturers created to fill the need in the early to mid-20th century middle and working class markets. At that time, most people were looking forward and didn’t want “old” furniture in their homes. To buy all new furniture was a big deal, especially during the Great Depression. It was a way people impressed their friends and neighbors. Those who could afford to buy new furniture were definitely going places. So manufacturers produced some truly ugly, ostentatious pieces to fill this need. 

The roots of Modernism, grew out of pre-World War II industrialism. This furniture style used little or no ornamentation and a function over form concept. Influenced by Scandinavian, Japanese, and Italian designs, it featured industrial materials such as steel and plastic.

What all of the above styles had in common was that they were mostly produced for those that could afford them. Newly wealthy industrialists, bankers, and merchants wanted furniture that was in fashion and were willing to pay great sums for it. However, the common person couldn’t afford such luxuries and ended up with mass-produced pieces that didn’t cater to any taste in design.

What ordinary people wanted was their own form of luxury—comfortable chairs and couches that they could fall asleep in after a hard days work but that would also impress guests. They wanted just enough decoration to make the pieces seem elegant but not so much as to make them hard to care for. These needs resulted in overstuffed chairs and sofas with springs in their cushions to give added comfort, extremely stylized shallow carving that was easy to clean, and generally little decorative woodwork since using more added to the cost of the piece. Manufacturers could use cheap woods to build the frames which they then covered with upholstery.

Sitting prominently in the living rooms and family rooms of many 30 to 50-year-olds today is the ubiquitous “comfy” sofa, It takes up a huge about of space and can seat at least four or more people comfortably. Some models feature built-in lounge chairs with pop-up ottomans. The precursor to these giants was the sectional sofa. This unique piece of furniture came in sections. Buyers could buy as many sections as they needed to create a monster seating “pit,” popular in the 1980s. In some homes, condos, and apartments, the giant sofa is the only piece of furniture in the room, besides the giant flat-screen T.V. hung on the wall opposite it. 

While the sectional sofa certainly rose to fame in the mid-20th century, it has a more complex past. Before built-in cup holders and powered recliners, sectional sofas solved other problems for homeowners in the early 19th century, back before the start of the Civil War. Only a few examples remain intact, and most of them are in Virginia.

Antiques experts believe that end pieces of sectional sofas have long been mistaken for corner chairs, but evidence is sketchy. The loss of furniture makers, workshops, and a shortage of timber halted furniture production in the South. And destruction by the Union Army in Virginia led to the loss of most of these pieces. Back then, a sectional consisted of two tufted, carved and laminated sofas pushed together. Corner pieces were virtually nonexistent. 

Jumping ahead nearly 100 years to the era of Mid-Century Modern, the sectional sofa became the perfect showcase for the furniture designs of Charles & Ray Eames and George Nelson when the sleek, industrial profile of contemporary-style furniture appeared. The sectional also  answered the question of standardization versus customization when considering high consumer demand, thanks to department stores and catalogs. By breaking a sofa down into sectional pieces, known as modular design, it was easier to manufacture and ship, as well as mass-produce standard, individual pieces that could then be customized once they were the home.

And while comfort is a good thing, style is something else altogether and often the twain do not meet. But this comfort phenomenon didn’t just begin yesterday. It actually started 100 years ago in the 1920s. 

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