Mission Furniture: a purely American furniture design

Mission furniture is a unique American art form that remains sought after as collector’s pieces and as a modern furniture design. The specific beginnings of this design seem to be unknown, nevertheless the tale generally cited has been that Mission furniture had been created by the parishioners of a San Francisco church around 1890. Having no money, the parishioners chose to build the furniture themselves, producing items mimicing furniture encountered in the Spanish mission stations of Mexico and in the western and southwestern parts of the United States. A different tale claims the Native Americans helped the monks make furniture for the recently built missions in California and Mexico. The resulting designs ended up simple, strong, practical tables and chairs, devoid of frills, and stylish in their simplicity, strength, and beauty. Learn more information about mission furniture.

Mission-style furniture was trendy in the United States between 1890 and 1914 and became an element of the Arts and Crafts movement that originated in Great Britain. This movement stressed the great importance of preserving the handcrafted furniture, and was a departure from the more extravagantly designed furniture associated with the Victorian era. The design was seriously influenced by the straight lines and simple structure associated with the Japanese furniture of those times, however, Mission style furniture is purely American, and it simply maintained the fundamental philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement. When it became popularly accepted, the term “Mission Furniture” was given to this particular style, and although it had begun in the West, it was a New York-based designer, Joseph McHugh, who started producing Mission furniture intended for the masses. Learn more information about unfinished furniture.

Given the fact that manufactured products of that time were frequently weak in design and quality, the Arts and Crafts movement stressed the revival of quality workmanship. Inferior, mass-produced products would be replaced with beautiful things made by professional hands, and this furniture mirrored the ideals of the movement. Mission-style furnishings were simple, stylish and practical, and crafted from unprocessed, unpainted wood and other down-to-earth elements.

Mission-style furniture at that time was built almost exclusively of weathered or fumed oak. Differentiated by clean lines, and mortise, tenon, and dowel joinery, this style of furniture was commonly free of embellishment, although large nail heads, basic cut out shapes or hand-hammered copper appliqués were sometimes used for decoration. Both original and modern-day Mission furniture is characterized by straight, uncluttered lines and the unadorned charm of quarter-sawn white oak with features of joinery, including through tenons, corbels and butterfly joints. Only a handful of furniture designs have maintained the elegance of Mission style furniture. From its solid lines and handcrafted beginnings, this furniture has been at the vanguard of solid oak and wood furniture for over a hundred years.

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