Courses:

Course Info

• Course Number / Code:
• 4.296 (Spring 2005) 
• Course Title:
• Furniture Making 
• Course Level:
• Undergraduate / Graduate 
• Offered by :
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  Massachusetts, United States  
• Department:
• Architecture 
• Course Instructor(s):
• Prof. Christopher Dewart 
• Course Introduction:
•  
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  4.296 Furniture Making
  
  
  
  

  Spring 2005

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Course Highlights

  
  
  

  This course features an image gallery to highlight student projects and course demonstrations in the lecture notes section.

  
  
  

  Course Description

  
  
  

  Furniture making is in many ways like bridge building, connections holding posts apart with spans to support a deck. Many architects have tried their hand at furniture design, Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Aalto, Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Gerhy.

  We will review the history of furniture making in America with a visit to the Decorative Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have Cambridge artist/craftsman Mitch Ryerson show us his work and talk about design process. Students will learn traditional woodworking techniques beginning with the use of hand tools, power tools and finally woodworking machines.

  Students will build a single piece of furniture of an original design that must support someone weighing 185 lbs. sitting on it 12 inches off the ground made primarily of wood. Students should expect to spend approximately 80 hours in the shop outside of class time.

  Preregistered architecture students will get first priority but first meeting attendance is mandatory. Twelve student maximum, no exceptions.

  
  
  

  Special Features

  
  
  

  • Video demonstration
  • Image gallery

  
  
  

  Technical Requirements

  
  
  

  QuickTime®Player is required to run the .mov files found on this course site.