Culture of Furniture

Earlier this week I heard a lot of loud stomping around in the stairwell of our apartment building. Living in such close quarters with so many people makes one hypersensitive, and even voyeuristic at times. The view from our back balcony is comparative to the apartments in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rearview Window', although less scandalous for now. Following this loud noise I decided to look out my front window to see who would emerge from the front door and I almost couldn't believe what I saw.



Standing outside was a middle age man in a tall black top hat, made from real fur. He wore an all black outfit including a button-up V-shaped vest with tails and sported a bushy mustache, it was almost cartoonish. I struggled to place this person in space and time. The only thing that occurred to me was that he must have wandered over from one of the nearby Weinachtsmarkts (Christmas markets) that consist of dozens of wooden cabins temporarily set up for merchants to sell their holiday wares. It still did not seem quite right. Upon another inspection, I noticed that he had a large brush sticking our of his back pocket. The kind of brush made from real twigs not just extruded plastic bristles. It occurred to me that he was serious. This was not a costume, it was a uniform. He was like something I had only seen in movies, something from a distant past. He was not a charicature, he had to be a chimney sweep.

I doubted this conclusion, not to mention i do not think that there are any chimneys in our entire building, but my suspicions were reinforced when I later heard a story about Tischlers. Tischler are part of a crafts tradition that still survives in Germany speaking countries. They are tradesmen that practice pre-industrial crafts, in this case woodworking. After their formal training they roam the countryside looking for a way to make their living, often performing songs for donations and using an age old network to support them for housing and job openings. They are easily identified by their uniforms which consist of a floppy felt hat, a man-skirt toolbelt (like those worn in many woodshops today) and carrying a large walking stick that has been hand-carved. Seeing a Tischler convinced me that the trade of chimney sweeps could b alive and well. For all of its Modern utopianism Germany is still a very romantic country.



I never cease to be amazed by the culture of European furniture. We made our second trip to IKEA to seek solutions to our remaining household needs; pillows, a fruit bowl, a houseplant (cactus) and a set of picture frames for some new prints I am working on. We spent most of the time admiring all of the consideration that IKEA has put into creating an entire shopping experience, a Gesamtkaufwerk if you will. We used their electronic PIN lockers, ate a swedish meatball meal in the cafe, and looked at their new line of clothing for the pertinent things in your IKEA life, pajamas and reflective bicycle vests. This location even has pet furniture in place at the entrance so you do not have to leave your pets at home.