There is a saying which says ‘There is nothing new in design.’ Maybe that’s true to a certain extent. However, we do believe that good design is based on original thinking.
Over the 40 years we have been in business, Broadway kitchens have been greatly influenced and inspired by great furniture designers of the past and present and they have helped us to apply original thinking to some design classics.
When designing furniture, we are not always fully conscious of the fact that elements of our creations have been influenced by great designers of the past and indeed the present. I look upon this as ‘tipping my hat’ to truly great names and brands in British furniture design, whose designs have obviously lodged in my subconscious design armoury because of their exceptional quality.
I believe that as a designer, if you can inspire other designers, then you have truly arrived even if its posthumous inspiration as with the three great, original London based designers of the 18th century; Messer’s Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Chippendale.
Interestingly enough, these designers were in turn influenced by previous generations of designers. For example, Thomas Chippendale was heavily influenced by the late Georgian period of furniture design and we in turn, have designed commissions with centre door panels featuring ornate marquetry not dissimilar to some of those featured on Chippendales’ creations.
I have on occasion, also drawn inspiration from his two contemporaries, George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton, whether it be how a piece of timber is shaped and coloured or an element of a leg detail featured within one of our kitchen column designs.
There are also many great 20th / 21st century designers whom I greatly admire. They too have influenced some of our kitchen designs, just as they have been influenced by period design style of a bygone era. Clive Christian OBE made famous his take on the classic, ornate, mid Victorian Kitchen in 1978. Mark Wilkinson, OBE, has made famous the classic painted, Edwardian, in-frame kitchen, with its curved corner profiles and large wooden door and drawer knobs.
Taking Christians’ lead, we like to think we have taken the Victorian kitchen to a whole new level in terms of specification and materials. We use the very finest timbers and sumptuous paint finishes and blend this with unique design details such as opening reeded columns to give our customers additional, clever storage.
For those with a taste for bespoke in-frame furniture with a cleaner, fuss free, design one has to look at the Edwardian period which typifies this approach; an approach made famous by Mark Wilkinson. Once again, we have our own unique take on this period style any by the very definition of being a true bespoke manufacturer, each one of our customer creations is entirely different to the last with every commission being completely in tune with the individual customers’ tastes and lifestyle requirements.
Charles Smallbone taught us all not only how to do great business from making truly special kitchens, enabling him to float his kitchen business on the stock exchange in 1986, but also, in-frame could be exciting and contemporary.
Whilst the Smallbone brand is in different hands of ownership today, the design philosophy of adding a contemporary twist to century’s old, cabinet making construction techniques is still very much in evidence. Smallbone has taught us that you can look beyond the past Victorian and Edwardian eras and put a 21st century slant on in-frame kitchen furniture. Unusual natural timbers, precious metals integrated into door designs and original, exciting island configurations are all possible.
Thank you great British furniture designers; you have taught us all to think outside the box (or the cabinet!) and helped future generations of designers, like ourselves, to make British kitchen furniture design, the best furniture design in the world.