Design: Manufacturing / Pennsylvania
Pure craft
While many design firms have chosen to move their manufacturing abroad, some US studios are beginning to look a little closer to home. In Pennsylvania, it’s Amish and Mennonite craftspeople who are helping to bridge the gap, offering a sturdy presence in American wooden-furniture production and sticking to a traditional hands-on approach.
Dave Smoker, an Amish furniture maker, is intensely focused on staining a grand timber table. “I have always enjoyed art,” he says, sweeping his hair from his forehead and following the grain of the wood with long, meditative strokes of his brush. Smoker started work this morning at 05.45 and will not finish until 17.00, when he and his fellow Amish craftsmen will down tools and join their families at home for supper under the glow of battery-powered lights.
The Amish are an Anabaptist religious community – a Christian movement that traces its…
