Critical Discourse of Postmodern Aesthetics in Contemporary Furniture (I) - The background of New Design furniture in the postmodern era

This study explored the background of contemporary furniture design called New Design furniture, which newly expresses the aesthetics of communication in the postmodern era. Qualitative conceptual analysis as the principle methodology was used to explore the background of the decorative and meaningful contemporary furniture in postmodernism. Thereby, the postmodern concepts of Charles Jencks, Robert Venturi, and Michael Graves were analyzed in terms of their postmodern architecture and furniture. As initiatives of postmodern architecture and furniture, Jencks, Venturi, and Graves explored the pluralism and eclecticism, the decoration, the semantics, and the materials reestablished from the traditions of craft. As a result, their furniture was expressed by various wood and color; the furniture was beautiful, decorative, pluralistic, and eclectic for communicating symbol, metaphor, narrative, and/or humor with people; the furniture has influenced the communicative elements on the contemporary furniture design called New Design furniture design, which shows the blurring of fine arts and craft distinctions.