Children's Furniture

Abstract

Asked to write about furniture design for children seemed to me at first sight rather straightforward. Exploring the literature, however, made it clear that the subject is quite a broad and complex one. It was going to be less easy than I thought. The wide diversity of psychological, pedagogical and didactic standpoints, the varying cultural backgrounds, and the heterogeneity of the genre - from cradle to space hopper - all contribute to a haziness of the subject's boundaries that makes it practically impossible to treat it as a general topic. So what can count as children's furniture? Small chairs and tables? Undoubtedly - but not these alone. It begins with the cradle and the baby walker, which is so pre-eminently the first item of childhood furniture that it has become a metaphor for the origin of something in its own right. But a perambulator can also serve as a cradle when stationary; does that make it an item of furniture rather than a vehicle? There are child-specific furniture types, such as high chairs, baby walkers and playpens. And then there are cot beds, potty chairs, child-sized toy cupboards or wardrobes and small chairs and tables, which are on the whole scaled-down versions of adult furniture possibly adapted to child use in various ways. […]