A to Z of Modern Living: furniture maker Edward Collinson talks working with wood, bespoke kitchen design and his inspiration sources
“My background is in art; I did my master’s at Central St Martins. I was living in an industrial live/work unit which gave me the space I needed to work. The warehouse was pretty derelict, but I loved the rawness of the building and the freedom it gave me. The first furniture I made was out of necessity more than anything. The warehouse needed a kitchen, so I made one. Somebody visited the studio and commissioned another kitchen – that particular client commissioned many other pieces further down the line.”
“The real transition from art making came because I was finding art increasingly restrictive. Furniture just allows me to work with things on a purely aesthetic and functional basis. I find it much freer creatively because I don’t have to say why, it can just be beautiful and well-made and that’s enough. That’s where the furniture making began but it took a few years until I decided to open a workshop solely for the production of furniture. I also built a prefabricated cabin in that studio, which was erected in North Yorkshire. It was interesting to explore so many things at that time and I’ve built numerous cabins and garden studios since then.”
“Yes, I have really. I grew up on a farm and was always interested in how things were made and how they worked: the machinery, the tools, the buildings. Fixing broken machinery or leaky roofs, doing fencing and walling and building was all part and parcel of that life.”
How did you finesse your craft?“I owe a lot to the conversations and direction that the master’s degree gave me. In contemporary art practice today there’s an insistence on analytical thinking or what they called ‘criticality’, at least there was at my school and it was the same for many of the London MA programs. Funnily this was something that really drained my interest in fine art – I don’t believe art should be so cerebral. But maybe this is why I’m constantly pursuing something more from craft.”
“Yes, very often a design will come from a particular craft process. The Low Back Chair design, for example, is based on split tenon joinery and made on a lathe. I do prefer to work directly with a craft process or material than to work on paper or computer first. CAD software is very useful but mostly I use them for working through technical details which would be too expensive to make in the physical multiple times. I think it’s much better when its direct. I make a lot of prototypes and I think I’m just accustomed to doing it that way.”
Are there any similarities between making art and furniture?“The formal concerns of colour, light, form, material etc are present in both disciplines. Of course, furniture is viewed as functional and art is not. But I always believed that art was functional, albeit a different kind of function and furniture can be beautiful, decorative or even useless.”
“I really like to be able to see and to read a building, its history, its design and its layout. Being able to see where a wall touches the floor, for example, I think is important. Furniture and architecture are different and for me it’s important to make a distinction; you need the furniture to be its own thing, and then you can read them both individually. This is particularly relevant when it comes to choosing between a fitted kitchen or freestanding kitchen. Freestanding items naturally fit within a space and allow you to read the building. The good examples of fitted kitchens and furniture are those which respond to the surrounding architecture and enhance it, rather than attempting to hide or modify it.
Also, in very practical ways I think a lot about how light interacts with the furniture. When I’m designing something bespoke – a kitchen or a piece of furniture for a specific space – I think about the quality of light in that space. That could be the basis of a design and, of course, informs architecture in a big way.”
How involved is your relationship with the material?“Very involved is the answer. Aside from being heavily involved in the making of furniture I have started to source and fell my own trees for our furniture. It’s so much work to fell a tree, and then have it milled and seasoned. But it feels important to understand the production chain.”
“I think in truth I can’t answer that: there are many places and nowhere particular. Often, I look at historical furniture design and visit stately homes to look at cabinetry. William Morris’ Red House with Philip Webb’s pieces is wonderful. Outside the V&A there are some green cabby shelters, which you can find all over London. These are the basis of some green cabinet designs – hopefully they’ll get made this year.”
“I also really like the early mid-century stuff, like George Nakashima. I also like Wendall Castle and Sam Maloof. Sam Maloof was an American chair maker who did super organic rocking chairs that are very sculptural. On the other side, I like kitchen makers like Bulthaup, who are doing very rectilinear, orthogonal stuff.”
“That relationship – between organic and geometric – is really important, and I’m slowly finding a place between the two, as a combination of straight lines and curves that work together. I think it’s an important division in design, and normally you either fall on one side of that or the other, but I think really good design has both.”
What kind of things would you like to make in the future?“There are lots of things I would like to make, lots of unrealised ideas for furniture pieces. Upholstery is something I’m beginning to explore now. But in truth I think I’m quite opportunistic in the way I work. If a client asked me to design a car I probably would. Similarly, a house or an interior space. I think that’s how it’s possible to maintain a creative practice, if you can be open to new challenges.”
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