What Industrial Looms Lost When They Gained Speed
In 1785, Edmund Cartwright patented the power loom, an invention that would increase weaving speed by a factor of forty within a century.
2026-05-27
TN
Thomas Nakamura
133 articles
Showing 81–100 of 133 articles
How One Danish Workshop Makes Furniture to Last Two Centuries
PP Mobler in Alleroed, Denmark, has produced Hans Wegner's furniture designs since 1953, and the workshop guarantees that a chair made today will remain structurally sound for two hundred years.
2026-05-27
The Blacksmith Forging Door Hardware for Europe's Oldest Hotels
When the Hotel and Gasthof zur Goldenen Sonne in Landshut, Bavaria, needed replacement hinges for doors that had swung since 1490, they turned to a blacksmith whose forge sits barely twenty kilometres away.
2026-05-27
How One Family Has Repaired the Same Cathedral's Stonework for Six Generations
Since 1843, the Rattee family and their successors at Rattee and Kett have maintained the stonework of England's great ecclesiastical buildings, with particular devotion to the colleges and chapels of Cambridge.
2026-05-26
Brass, Bronze, and the Chemistry of Metals That Age Well
Walk into any Georgian townhouse and you will find brass door furniture that has spent two centuries developing a patina no chemical treatment can replicate.
2026-05-26
The Glassblower Working Twelve-Hour Days for a Single Decanter
At the Moser glassworks in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, a master glassblower begins his shift at five in the morning when the furnace has reached twelve hundred degrees Celsius.
2026-05-26
The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses
In 1936, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a modest house for Herbert Jacobs in Madison, Wisconsin, costing five thousand five hundred dollars.
2026-05-25
The Science of Aging: Leather, Denim, and Wood
A new pair of raw selvedge denim is stiff, dark, and unforgiving.
2026-05-24
The Art of Hand-Painting Watch Dials
At Anita Porchet's atelier in Lausanne, the world's most celebrated enamel painter applies mineral pigments to a coin-sized watch dial under a microscope.
2026-05-24
The Endangered Craft of Hand-Blown Glass
At a London studio, a gather of molten glass at eleven hundred degrees glows orange-white on a blowpipe.
2026-05-24
Inside a Perfume Organ: How Master Perfumers Work
The perfume organ at Givaudan's training school in Grasse holds approximately six hundred bottles arranged by olfactory family.
2026-05-24
Inside a Japanese Pottery Studio: Wabi-Sabi in Practice
At the Raku family workshop in Kyoto, where the fifteenth generation continues a tradition from the sixteenth century, tea bowls are shaped without a wheel.
2026-05-23
The Craft of Bookbinding in the Digital Era
At Shepherds Bookbinders in London, a craftsman applies gold leaf to a leather spine using heated brass tools.
2026-05-23
The 20-Year Briefcase: What Makes It Worth It
A briefcase from Swaine Adeney Brigg, established in 1750, is constructed from bridle leather tanned at J.
2026-05-21
The 10-Year Chef's Knife: What Makes It Worth It
A Misono UX10 gyuto, forged in Seki City from Swedish stainless steel hardened to Rockwell 59-60, arrives with an edge ground to fifteen degrees per side.
2026-05-21
Inside the Workshop: A Northampton Shoemaker
At the Edward Green factory in Northampton, the clicking room smells of leather and decisions.
2026-05-20
Inside the Workshop: A Swiss Watchmaker
In the Vallee de Joux, Philippe Dufour works alone at a bench overlooking snow-covered fields.
2026-05-20
On Learning to Appreciate an Art Form You Once Dismissed
At twenty-five, I considered opera an extravagant exercise in melodrama.
2026-05-18
How the Blues Travelled from Mississippi to Manchester
In 1962, a young Mick Jagger clutched a collection of Chess Records imports on a train platform in Dartford, England, and struck up a conversation with Keith Richards about Muddy Waters.
2026-05-17
What Abstract Expressionism Demanded of Its Audience
When Jackson Pollock's drip paintings first appeared at Betty Parsons Gallery in New York in 1948, the critical establishment split between those who saw revolutionary art and those who saw an elaborate hoax.
2026-05-15