Karl Friedrich Schinkel — The Architect Who Designed Berlin Biedermeier
Most people know Karl Friedrich Schinkel as the architect who rebuilt Berlin, the man behind the Altes Museum and the Neue Wache, whose colonnades still define the Prussian capital. Far fewer know that the same hand that drew those facades also drew chairs, cabinets, and writing desks, and that in doing so he shaped an […]
The Antique Commode Through Four Centuries — How One Piece of Furniture Defined European Style
Pick almost any room in a European palace between 1700 and 1850, and the most expensive object in it was probably a chest of drawers. Not a painting, not a tapestry, but a low case of drawers standing against the wall beneath a mirror. The antique commode was the piece on which the finest cabinetmakers […]