"Craftsmanship is a deeply rooted heritage of humanity that must be responsibly nurtured."

Furniture crafting as a cultural technique

The work of our own hands is one of the most fundamental ways humans interact with the world. Craftsmanship is its cultural condensation.

What matters most about it cannot be found in books - it lives in movements, in the feel of material, in the interplay of eye and hand. It can only be passed on by doing. What happens when this knowledge disappears?

And what depends on it - in terms of self-efficacy, agency, and our understanding of what good work means? As a third-generation carpenter, this is not an abstract question for me. It is what gave rise to Open Furniture Culture in 2020.

Wood as a material, furniture and its design have been present for me ever since. My engagement for the preservation of craft culture is motivated by this connection as well as many conversations about the significance of craftmanship from various perspectives.

What is Open Furniture Culture?

Open Furniture Culture is an initiative in appreciation of more than 3500 years of furniture making, its techniques, tools and knowledge. It is intended to contribute to the preservation and open proliferation of traditional woodworking knowledge.

It particularly considers the state of craftmanship and furniture making in the 21st century and paths into the future.

Open Furniture Culture connects people with different perspectives on this topic - and is equally a project space, document archive, knowledge pool and a collection of designs, drawings and plans.

Values

Woodworking is a cultural technique that has been passed down through many generations. Both in terms of technique and style, it is firmly based on knowledge sharing.

An increasingly important aspect of contemporary furniture culture is sharing product designs and build them independently in local craft tradition, using regionally sourced raw materials.

Thus Open Furniture Culture also contributes to an alternative approach to industrial serial production that values traditional crafts and helps preserving craftmanship techniques and cultural heritage.

What it is not

It's explicitely not a complement to movements like Open Design Furniture, Open CNC Furniture or marketplaces like Thingiverse.

The primary goal of these projects is to provide designs for manufacturing objects via computer-aided equipment like CNC mills or generative techniques (3D printing, laser sintering).

While these are approaches in their own right, their principal objective is to overcome the knowledge and manual mastery of traditional craft by technology.

Today is the good old time of tomorrow: A witty pun by Bavarian icon Karl Valentin, who was a carpenter himself.

Looking at thoughtfully handcrafted furniture from centuries past, it becomes obvious that their quality has a reason.

Emphasizing key elements - such as century-proven joining techniques as well as a thoughtfully decent style beyond extroverted design - sets the foundation for the antiques of tomorrow, lasting for generations.

Don't hesitate to contact me if you want to learn more: mail@schatzl.studio