Contemporary Furniture - 10,000 Years In The Making!

Contemporary furniture is, like art, essentially defined as the style of furniture created 'at this point in time'. Furniture has been around for as long as people have been living in a fixed place for an extended period of time (so we're talking several thousands of years). As you can imagine, things have changed somewhat over that span of time.

Furniture was born of practicality. Any object (that can be moved around, which is fortunate for those in the removals industry) that supports basic activities like sitting, sleeping or working (so you don't have to do everything on the floor) can be considered as basic furniture. Pieces used for storage can also be included in the furniture family. Contemporary furniture has evolved to become more than just functional, but fashionable as well.

The middle ages brought about a surge in creativity as it relates to furniture. Contemporary furniture stems from the work of artisans from the middle ages more than it does the original Neolithic furniture (think caves and stone and a Spartan existence). The point of a Spartan existence is actually a notable one, in that even though furniture hadn't fully found its place as decorative or ornamental by then, the Greeks had begun to decorate vases, which is generally considered to be the first record of an item being created for nothing more than 'to look nice' (although this is an almost insultingly simplistic description of the Greek's incredible artwork).

So while examples of contemporary furniture will differ throughout the ages (remember, it only means 'at this point in time'), we can see the turning point of when function started to blend with fashion. Today's contemporary furniture is generally more subtle and minimalist now than the contemporary furniture of past ages. The ornamental aspect has been toned down and ergonomics have come back into 'fashion'. With ergonomics being the process of finding the most efficient way of doing things (which includes reducing the risk of wear, injury or discomfort), function started to become once again somewhat more important than fashion.

Fortunately for home owners and home office dwellers everywhere, it didn't take long for the appearance of ergonomic furnishing to become a priority and so finally we are left with the contemporary furniture of our time (at the time of writing at least!). Many European designers then started to create furniture that blends together the epitome of function (super comfortable beds, sleek and flowing cabinets, fully spine-sensitive seating) with incredible aesthetics.

Today we are blessed with furniture created by the likes of SMA and Jesse of Italy. They have been able to produce furniture that, to the uninitiated (which I admit, I once was), creates an ease and comfort that you would have never thought possible, being brought up around more basic and purely functional furniture. For the more experienced connoisseur of contemporary furniture; well you already know what I mean.