Functional Design

Alright, first things first.  My mom is an antique-er in a major way.  She is an expert in antique glass and a few other things that I am ignorant to.  And I would go so far to say that her collection is worth twice or more what the house that holds them is worth.  So needless to say my whole life I have been living around, eating off of, sleeping in, and sitting on antiques.  But I have not had much respect for the things, UNTILL this past weekend.  Now rewind to Saturday night.

After spending the day on the lake I came back to the house to relax by myself and I decided to do that best by smoking a tobacco pipe while enjoying a microbrew in front of the fire pit on the patio (this might be the summer of the fire pit). 

Well with all fires outside I have come to expect the “cold back”.  That’s what happens when the side of your body that is not facing the fire feels cold.  And this fire experience was no different.  Once the fire turned to red hot coals my back started getting cold while I was sitting in one of my collapsible chairs.

As I was sitting there with the cold back in my collapsible chair I pondered on ways to remedy the “cold back”.  And then it dawned on me!  Those antique chairs of mom’s I have been sitting in all my life were designed to combat the cold back. 

They remind me of something strait out of an Edgar Allen Poe poem.  

In the past I really disliked sitting in chairs like this because the side wings hinder eye to eye conversation, but now I know they weren’t’ designed for that.  

Those high backs, deep cushion, and winged sided chairs were made to reflect and focus that radiant heat from the fire back onto the person sitting in it.  They were made to capture the warmth from a hearth!  The design makes total sense to me now.  I have this new respect of antiques and the geniuses who designed them.  In today’s life we don’t sit around hearths anymore so the chairs are just around to look nice and have lost their real functionality.  I’m going to have to start keeping my eye out for antique functional design.  Now to make an outdoor fire pit chair with that a similar design.