Customer Reviews

Furniture Design and Construction for the Interior Designer

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If you want to take your interior design practice to a new level, this is the book for you. The whole world would work a lot better if there were more interdisciplinary books like this one. In the same way that Jonathan Hale opened up the world of architecture for the non-architect in "The Old Way of Seeing", Christopher Natale empowers the interior designer to serve clients with a whole new arsenal of insider knowledge. With clear language and intuitive visual flow as clever as a Chinese box, Natale explains the inner workings of furniture and shows you how the subtle marks of good design and construction can have a huge influence on the surrounding space. You'll never look at furniture the same way again after reading Furniture Design and Construction for the Interior Designer. You'll discover how the right furniture, rightly designed and built, can transform a space instead of just filling it. Your recommendations will carry a new artistic power and technical authority. This is a reference tool that both the professional and the non-professional enthusiast will want to return to again and again for inspiration in the art and craft of improving the interior environment.

The cover on this book is very seductive - it promises to put the reader on the cutting edge of design. Holding the book is your first indication: it's flimsey and feels like it will fall apart with too many openings. The book contains line drawing after line drawing punctuated with a few black and white photographs that are so hard to see, they add no value; and there are no color photographs.

The information contained in this book is not new, not newly presented, not newly discussed. The content is widely available on the Internet or easily purchased in a book for 1/4 the cost. You do learn how some furniture is built and about how joints are designed, all superficially-not in a way that would help you actually complete a joint in your own shop or garage. The learning in the book could be done with a walk through an antique furniture shop.

If you think you're interested in this book, I suggest you go to the library first and look at it. This book was an expensive disappointment. But the cover is cool.

This is a quality book for interior design student looking to understand the construction of furniture and what the price point of a custom piece should be. Natale does an excellent job of utilizing text and pictures to educate the reader. My only complaint is the layout of the page numbers- when flipping through the book you have no idea what page you are on- makes a normally quick task time consuming.