Yesterday evening I was watching a video on the work of the "replicator" at the British Museum, who has a fascinating job of creating legitimate forgeries. These have many uses: for display when the original is being restored or shown elsewhere; for teaching purposes (he said he has made 33 replicas of the Rosetta Stone); or, using the identical materials, so that visitors to the museum can pick up the object and get a feel for the weight and tactile qualities. The museum is always careful to indicate a replica on display, thus preserving the authenticity of the original and of the museum as a whole.
| I had just been thinking about replicas and fakes in everyday things - much more mundane, but everywhere we look. One of my history of architecture lecturers called this "tectomorphic" - representing the function of something it is not. Often this is quite satisfying, especially where the thing being copied is clearly not meant to be mistaken from its new use (although some Baroque artists were masterful in making marble look like fabric). |
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| My fake marble shower curtain |
My problem with fakes is when they are pretending to be something they are not - the very reason for using a particular material is undermined through its "translation" into a different material. A good example is fake vegetation. Our reasons for having plants inside our spaces is that they refresh the air and respond to our deep-seated need to be in contact with nature. Real flowers and pot-plants are constantly changing - opening and closing, turning to the light, and gradually opening and then wilting and dying. A large part of their attraction is this very "messiness", which is completely ironed out with a fake. The photo below says it all - not a single wilted or browned leaf, and even the angle of each stem and leaf has been abstracted.
As someone who struggles to keep indoor plants alive, I can understand the motivation behind artificial ones, but they are deeply unsatisfying and can degrade the atmosphere of a space. I have a cheat solution in my entrance/dining room - an arrangement of dried proteas and fynbos that give interest to the room, but are clearly not trying to look like fresh flowers.
More tricky are the materials that actually serve the function of the material they are replicating, sometimes even better than the original. Here I am thinking of things like engineered stone - this has many of the properties of the stone it is imitating: smooth and cold to the touch, and similar in the way it reflects light. But it is more stain-resistant and easier to clean, and far more predictable in its performance, making it more versatile and less likely to crack or shatter.
We have become so used to materials that imitate wood, especially Formica that was popularised in the 1950s for kitchen counter-tops, and now is the standard for everyday office furniture. While it is quite sturdy and very easy to clean, it immediately gives the dismal aesthetic of "back office", in contrast with an "executive range" of solid wood.
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| The formica and steel desk in my office |
Real wood furniture, like real indoor plants and flowers, has variance - this is sometimes elevated by the craftsman to express the process of construction, or to exploit the characteristics of the different wood species. A harder wood is reserved for the structural elements and those parts of the furniture that can be expected to get the greatest wear-and-tear, while a softer wood is used for infill panels, especially easy to carve, so often used for the more decorative areas.
Wood veneer can provide a more affordable alternative. It has the same variety and warmth of solid wood, and its performance can be engineered through the material that it is covering. There are a couple of problems, though. The first comes from the fact that the veneer is extremely thin, so one needs cover strips for the sides. Visually, this is the giveaway, but on top of that, there are problems of durability - the parts most vulnerable are the most fragile and can quite soon look disappointing.
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| Peeling strips on the veneered edges |
Also, veneer is frequently used to cover materials that are not at all robust, such as chipboard, which is not very structurally strong, especially tending to bend under weight, nor is it very resistant to water. For this reason, I have always opted for solid pine furniture when I could not justify the cost of more appealing hardwoods, and tried to steer away from veneer. It is fit for purpose, relatively affordable and seem to last forever.
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| A pine bookcase |
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