China traditional furniture appears in modern life.

1. What is "China Traditional Furniture"

First of all, let's take a look at what is called "China traditional furniture". The traditional furniture in China developed to the middle of Ming Dynasty, and it has become more and more complete. Therefore, in general, Ming-style furniture and China traditional furniture can almost be equated. Of course, qing dynasty furniture after Qianlong was also the traditional furniture of China, but it was too piled up and eventually became rigid, so we still took Ming-style furniture as the representative. What is "China Traditional Furniture"? Jiangsu Arts and Crafts No.6 (1June 5438+1October, 1999) defines Ming-style furniture as: "Ming-style furniture refers to high-quality hardwoods such as Huang Huali wood, chicken wing wood, tieli wood, rosewood wood and rosewood wood, which were produced from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty (from the Qianlong period). According to this definition, "Ming-style" furniture made of other periods and materials cannot be regarded as Ming-style furniture. But about the meaning of "Ming style", my understanding is "Ming style", that is, the furniture style from Ming Dynasty to early Qing Dynasty. The style of this kind of furniture that we are reproducing now should also belong to "Ming style".

2. Why modernization?

The so-called modern furniture is a new design based on new materials and technologies to meet the local needs at that time. After the industrial revolution, the middle class came into being, so the furniture was geared to the public. The new machine changed production from manual workshop to industrialized mass production. Products are mainly cheap and easy to process, and people begin to pursue functions.

After the Opium War, China suddenly collapsed like a blasting building. Even the once brilliant traditional furniture is gradually declining in materials, workmanship and design, and even the palace furniture is declining. The furniture for Emperor Guangxu's wedding and personal rule must be purchased from the people, even from Guangzhou and Hong Kong. At this time, whether it is Beijing-made, Soviet-made or widely-made furniture, it seems clumsy, crude and piled up.

One hundred and sixty years after the Opium War, it seems that China's culture has not fully recovered, at least in the furniture industry. Today, none of the top 100 designers in the world is from China. The furniture market in China is full of modern furniture designed by Europe, America and Japan.

However, with the development of China's economy and the enhancement of its national strength, China people will gradually regain their confidence in their own national culture, start to pursue their own things, and become world-class through this pursuit. If China continues to develop at an annual economic growth rate of more than 6%, China will have its own furniture with national characteristics within 30 years. The reason is:

2- 1. If we think that the mode of production of material means of subsistence constitutes the social economic foundation, on which there is a political and legal superstructure, ideology is a part of the superstructure, and the economy determines the superstructure, then, according to the estimation of the World Bank, China will reach the living standard of the West in the 1970s and 1980s in the next 20-30 years, so China people will also pursue this, which is a national awakening.

2-2. Simple modern furniture with function as the main feature, during the period from the industrial revolution to the lack of materials in the 1960s. People only want to meet the basic material requirements, but after the 1970s, the post-modernism cultural trend of thought rose, and people began to doubt the eternity of modernist theory, criticizing modernism for being too rational, too mechanized, the products are the same, ignoring people's individual needs, and the furniture lacked humanization. They advocate that furniture should be closely related to the environment, pay attention to context, and use necessary decorations to make furniture "humanized", with local characteristics and individuality to meet different needs.

3. The content of modernization

The modernization of traditional furniture in China should include three aspects, namely, materials, design and manufacturing technology.

3- 1. Material:

Now, in the eyes of ordinary people, there is an equal sign between mahogany and China traditional furniture (mahogany furniture), and they are regarded as one. Is this appropriate? Science? We must find out this problem first.

In fact, ancient China furniture was mainly made of domestic materials such as elm, pine, beech and nanmu. The large beech forest near Taihu Lake in Suzhou makes Suzhou a production center of Ming furniture. Later, beech gradually became scarce, and people began to look for new materials. In the Ming Dynasty, the handicraft industry was developed, the trade with Southeast Asia was frequent, and the logs such as mahogany were continuously shipped, which created the glory of Ming-style mahogany furniture.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, rosewood, which was regarded as high-grade at that time, was increasingly scarce, so rosewood discarded after being used as ballast began to be tried by people and eventually became a "nouveau riche".

In the Qianlong period, rosewood became less and less, so people developed a new variety of rosewood, which is what Shanghainese used to call "old rosewood", and then introduced rosewood from Thailand. By the end of Qing Dynasty, people began to use rosewood.

Judging from the history of traditional furniture materials in China, in fact, people in China use local materials, and the use of mahogany in Southeast Asia is also based on the principle of "easily available resources". In today's increasingly scarce resources such as mahogany at home and abroad, we can develop new materials to replace them, which is in line with the traditional habits of China people.

After the reform and opening up, the domestic market of mahogany furniture has advanced by leaps and bounds, and the demand has led to more and more small workshops and factories, and the market competition has become increasingly fierce. So the industry started cheating. What people argue about is not the quality and design of furniture, but whether the material used is so-called mahogany.

Therefore, the National Bureau of Technical Supervision of China officially promulgated the national standard GB/T 1 8107-2000 (redwood) on August12000 to regulate the market, but no one has ever done a complete quantitative analysis to determine the physical and mechanical properties of all redwoods, how good they are and whether they are suitable for the production of traditional furniture in China.

After the mahogany standard was issued last year, I found out seven physical and mechanical properties of eight kinds of mahogany in the standard, namely: air-dried density, shrinkage coefficient, compressive strength along grain, bending strength, hardness, impact toughness and shear strength along grain (these properties are related to furniture, some data are converted from existing data, and some are obtained after laboratory testing in Beijing Forestry University). Detailed data are collected in my book.