If you’re looking for a sleek, exotic look perfectly suited for smaller apartments and living spaces, Oriental-styled furniture is a definite alternative to contemplate. Chinese and Japanese offerings have had a excellent influence on Western furniture and contemporary design. Bedroom furniture pieces such as the platform bed and futon, as nicely as stacked chests and trunks are examples of Asian-inspired furniture that is practical and compact, and at the same time stylish and sophisticated.
Lacquered surfaces are a key attribute of the Chinese furniture style, making luxuriantly deep finishes that are paradoxically subtle and striking in their elegance. Comprised of ebony, teak and rosewood, Chinese furniture frequently bears an inlay of semi-precious materials like lapis lazuli, jade and mother-of-pearl. Symmetrical construction, miter joints and copper, brass or pewter brackets are usually employed to produce a clean profile that enhances a contemporary, cosmopolitan living space.
Space-saving savvy puts Japanese-inspired furniture high on the list of city dwellers and dorm room denizens alike. If you enjoy your sleek, streamlined platform bed and couldn’t live without your stowaway futon, you owe your admiration to the ingenuity of a culture that traditionally shuns huge, overwrought furniture. Other recognizable items that hail from Japan contain the stacked Tansu chests and Nagamochi trunks. Like Chinese furnishings, furniture influenced by Japanese style is defined by its joinery, with master artisans taking years to understand the construction of these complicated, durable joints. Fantastic pride is taken in the general lack of nails or glue that holds the structure together, and in the joint’s shock absorbing properties.
Significantly contemporary furniture owes its inspiration to ancient Oriental designs. The beauty of a piece was found in its usefulness and construction. Simplicity of design was valued a lot more than ostentatious and gaudy overindulgence. The exact same can be stated for today’s contemporary furniture, particularly bedroom furniture, where sleek and basic equals stylish and sophisticated.