This shop  

This thread has potential
to go either way! I love it.
But I haven't been able to keep up. Hope to rejoin soon.
Thanks to all.

So everything in your house i...
So everything in your house is fully upholstered or glass/metal/plastic or showing very little wood? That's so interesting to me because I'm on the other hand love what we've done with wood and what we CAN do with wood and the tradition and history of wood that stands before us every time we look at a piece of wood furniture that's well done.

Yes, that's exactly what's in my house.
No wood in any of the chairs except the LCW. No wooden legs on anything else. A few wooden tabletops hidden under laminate: an ETR, a few LTRs, and a Dordoni desk. A metal-framed bookshelf with black MDF shelves.
The only visible wood: two side tables with thin bent-wood tray tops on metal bases, wooden slats on a metal-legged bench, a multicolored ESU and EDU, and a bed with a barely-visible wooden platform on metal hairpin legs. And speaker cabinets, but if a different finish had been available I would've preferred it.
I recognize that there's a long tradition and history of woodworking, and I like to believe that I can appreciate craftsmanship and design talent no matter what the medium; it's just that wood always looks... I don't know, maybe primitive? Rustic? To me, "handmade" doesn't necessarily carry positive connotations, which may be why I like the aggressively machine-made feel of the Unto This Last pieces.

I must say,
You've explained your point with much conviction and logical thought, Fastfwd.
But as convinced you are about clinical, industrial and rational production, I feel exactly the opposite.
Wood is a natural material, with much strong qualities, as you already stated, and I believe it's origin or character is what attracts people to it. Wood is a living organism, wich moves and weathers with age and exposure to elements.
We are all (I hope you are) natural beings and thus the touch and sight of wood feels and looks familiar. That's why every time I'm faced with a tabletop, sculpted piece or board, I'm tempted to slide my hand over it.
I don't feel that urge with a laquered piece of mdf or a sheet of plastic.
As for the rustic quality of wood, that is completely reliant on the finish or production, no? There are so many species of wood, to choose from, all of wich give another result.
Wood has it's own way of handling, when building a chair, sideboard or even house. You have te respect the way it grows and thus it's grain. This gives carpentry it's own hierarchie when building up a piece. A logic wich makes sense and looks good too.
And although I have to admit that this way of producing is inherent to wood, the lack of direction in the illustrated chair (and other pieces where plywood was used) makes it feel cheap to me and, indeed like sitting on a cardboard maquette.

Wait a sec.
The cheapest student-level violin bows are fiberglass and maybe there are even some cheap metal bows, but anything of semi-decent quality and above is made of wood. It is not possible to get a good sound from a fiberglass bow. Same with the instruments themselves. You can get a plastic clarinet or violin or acoustic guitar, but professional musicians don't play on them because they don't sound good.

BJ
I'd like to think about what you've written and respond later.

Spanky
Testimonials from professional musicians who use carbon fiber bows:
http://www.arcus-bow.de/english/60e_violin_prof.htmhttp://www.arcus-bow.de/english/61e_viola_prof.htmhttp://www.arcus-bow.de/english/62e_cello_prof.htmhttp://www.arcus-bow.de/english/63e_bass_prof.htm
http://www.arcus-bow.de/english/60e_violin_prof.htm

Oh, right, carbon fiber..
..but that's also the testimonial page on a site that sells carbon fiber bows.
This site has a balance between wood and carbon fiber fans, and even among those it seems that a bunch have both and prefer one or the other depending on what and where they are playing.
So yeah, they're good, probably especially for the money---but they don't cover all the bases all the time. (My daughter is a cellist and I had a wonderful time years ago helping her pick a cello and bow---it's amazing the differences in sound in what looks like essentially the same thing.)
http://www.fiddlehangout.com/topic/26027

and to followup...
...my daughter just happened to call about something so I asked her about carbon fiber bows. She said yes, they're good for some things, like at the Obama inauguration when all the string players were provided with carbon fiber instruments and bows to play in the bitter cold outside, but that "you are never going to see Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma or musicians of that caliber playing on carbon fiber."
Anyway. It's a minor point, just happened to be something I know a little bit about. And I totally get what you're saying about a lot of that other stuff (though I love how wood looks and I own almost all wood furniture.)

Thanks, Spanky.
Good information. I didn't know they played CF instruments at the inauguration, but of course it makes sense -- no musician would subject his expensive wooden instrument to freezing temperatures if it could be avoided.
Although we agree that musical instruments are one of the very few areas where wood might actually be the best material, manufacturers may soon be forced to use new materials anyway. The brazilwood from which bows are made is endangered and already subject to trade restrictions, and the number of giant Sitka spruce trees -- for instrument bodies and piano soundboards -- is getting smaller every day.
In the US, we've anticipated these shortages and prepared for them by cutting government funding for music education in public schools... But people in the rest of the world still need instruments, so I hope someone is working to find more-sustainable materials with the right qualities (resonance, strength, ability to withstand temperature extremes, etc.) for them.

...
In the US, we've anticipated these shortages and prepared for them by cutting government funding for music education in public schools...
😀

For me and for most, I think, it's a tactile thing.
A connection to our natural world, perhaps.
Humans crave physical contact. Not just with other humans, but also with the objects that comprise our environment. That contact provides the tactile experience of our existence, a certain feedback loop, if you will.
If we remove organic materials from our experience and replace them with only the inorganic or synthetic, how will it change us as a species? Is it enough that the forms of our environment are derived from nature, or will those, too, be replaced by strict geometry?
These are my rhetorical questions for today, tapped out on my entirely inorganic, rectilinear iMac. It possesses a certain beauty, I suppose, but it's dead to me. I hate it and consider the infernal thing a necessary evil like my cars (but, at least, when I'm in those, I'm mostly touching leather)!

Goodness !
Do you suppose the word "materialism" is to materials as racism or sexism are to their subjects ?
We have one fellow who isn't much interested in wood in his environment, and another who claims to despise metal. I am reminded of those who claim there are "good" and "bad" colors . . . to whom the reply must be that there are no good and bad hues, only inappropriate or ill-chosen ones ?

I could never hate metal.
Heck, I even took a blacksmithing class last week. But, come to think of it, the hammers all had wooden handles and I wore a leather apron and glove on my other hand!
Fastfwd finds comfort in a different aesthetic and that's perfectly valid, if difficult for me to comprehend fully.
As I put lips to glass, however, I can't argue that the variety of materials we have at our disposal all play important roles in how we live. Some of my favorite vintage pieces of furniture incorporate metal components quite successfully. The surfaces most intimate, though, the stuff that touches my skin, I prefer to be organic. Again, it's the tactile qualities of cotton, leather, or wood versus plastics, metal, or stone I'd rather settle against. That is, of course, until my lovely wife allows me a peek beneath her steely armor.
BTW, SDR. I've forgotten now why I asked about Niedecken. I assumed you would know of his work and I've studied closely pieces formerly attributed to Wright and now thought to be Niedecken's. Anyway, whatever it was, it no longer seems relevant. Sorry. Oh, and I don't hate my computer or cars because they are made of any particular stuff!