John Marcoux Designs

Too often the chairs in our dining rooms become prematurely rickety and unreliable. They become a nuisance, requiring such repeated attention that they wear us down. We then end up with chairs unreliable and possibly dangerous to sit in. Is this the situation in your dining room?

I have put this message on the internet to show a simple solution to this problem. We need to realize that living with possibly dangerous chairs is totally unnecessary. My hope is that people will begin to demand from manufacturers a more reliable structure. It seems the only message they will respond to is a resistance which would result in slow sales affecting their profits.

If microwave ovens and dishwashers were manufactured and sold with outdated and weak structures in need of frequent repair, the companies that made them couldn’t expect to stay in business. For some reason, chair makers haven’t been persuaded that it’s necessary to improve their products. I remember my mother’s Model T Ford in the early 1930s in Vermont.  Every other day it broke down and needed repairs. With the automobile, however, manufacturers continued to improve the product. And we now can expect automobiles to be more reliable. But the chairs being made and sold today are just like the wobbly chairs in my mother’s dining room.

My name is John Marcoux, and I have been designing and building furniture since 1955. To see one example of a reliable chair, just click on “The Boylston Chair.”

Some of the ideas on this blog are further expanded in my book, The Elegant Triangle. If you wish to learn more, send $12 to my home at 283 George Street, Providence, RI, 02906. I’ll send you the book, in which you’ll find a lot more information about furniture.

I have also written an article, “Some Thoughts on Furniture and the Failure of Our Culture to Embrace it as an Important Contemporary Art.” It contains some further-ranging reflections than The Elegant Triangle, but fewer photos and in-depth analyses of my own furniture work. If you would like to read it, email me at johnmarcouxdesigns@gmail.com, and I will send you a copy.