French Renaissance

 From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, new art styles, changes in society, and changes in business led to new ideas in furniture design. During the Industrial Revolution, machines took over the process of making a lot of furniture that used to be done by hand. Folks liked Victorian furniture at this point in time. Victorian furniture is famous for having patterns with lots of small details, carvings that are very complicated, and a strange mix of styles. In the Victorian age, furniture was very valuable and showed how wealthy and high-class someone was. There was too much decoration on every piece because it had so many small details. Soon, some designers realized that quality and ease of use were once again important. This led to the Arts and Crafts movement, which valued beauty that had a reason and was made by hand. Leaders such as William Morris and Gustav Stickley pushed for designs that got rid of the unnecessary frills of business in favor of things that were beautiful, simple, and would last a long time.

  

                    French Renaissance Architecture                            Modern French Architecture

                    French Renaissance Ceiling                                        Modern Ceiling

The style of furniture changed a lot in the 20th century. Modernism had an impact on this. In addition to fancy and ornate styles from the past, modernist design worked on making things that were useful and tried out new materials in new ways. The Bauhaus school in Germany gave rise to this style. Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius were two designers who made useful, machine-made things with straight lines and industrial materials like plywood and tube steel. That being said, the Art Deco style used smoother lines and more expensive materials to show how happy people were in the 1920s. This style didn't really come into its own until after World War II. Well-known designers like Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and others made furniture that was comfortable, simple, and easy to make in large quantities. As a result of these changes in design, furniture became more modern and useful. Form and function were no longer seen as enemies, but as things that should work together.

    

                        French Renaissance Dresser                                    Modern Dresser

  

                        French Wall Paneling                                         Modern Wall Paneling

One Step Further

The famous French neoclassical builder Étienne-Louis Boullée lived from 1728 to 1799. His work was praised for its focus on monumentality and simplicity, as well as its ability to move people emotionally. Boullée's theoretical work still had a lasting impact on the growth of architecture, even though many of his plans have not been carried out. For example, the Cenotaph for Newton is still being planned. In fact, he often used strong geometric shapes like spheres and cubes in his works. He was going to turn space into something scary and awesome, like the sublime. Of course, his ideas about architecture came from the ideas of the Enlightenment. He believed that building should be much more than just functional, and that it should try to lift the spirit by playing with scale, light, and form. In fact, Boullée's work paved the way for later architectural movements like Romanticism, Futurism, and even Modernism. These movements built on his ideas about how space can affect people emotionally and symbolically, and they continued to inspire designers well into the 20th century. Even though his designs aren't very useful for building, Boullée is still a key figure in the history of architecture and is praised for the creative ways he used form and space.