Abstract:

Wood is probably one of the oldest materials in the history of humanity. It can be stated that one of the occupations that establishes the deepest and most special relationship with wood from just shaping to professional production is carpentry. This craft, which combines wood, shape, form with the human spirit, has weakened considerably in today’s world, under industry and capitalism, and has decreased numerically. On the other hand, human spirit existing in carpentry-craft, passion felt towards the final form, respect for the job itself and most importantly love for the quality are (unfortunately) rarely found design cores in industrial production. The style of the character and thinking strategy is not seen in the companies performing production just with profit orientation. It can be said that the majority of furniture companies today perform only profit-oriented productions. However, furniture is a product that needs to be designed and produced elegantly by considering every detail. The main idea that leads to this research is that craft and industrial production are separated from each other exactly at this point. Therefore, it is considered the outputs existing in industrial production do not meet the necessary competence in field of furniture, and it is questioned how and in what way this competence can be met. This study has been built to understand and make sense carpentry craft that still exists (but declining) and carry its mental patterns and behavior forms to the future. Within the framework of this main objective, discovering the cores that may be necessary within the industrial production is one of the aims of the research. At this point, the sample of the study is a firm that has survived from the past to the present and incorporated both traditional and industrial production in order to provide a comparative research and remain objective. The firm, which was officially opened in 1942, has sustained and improved its production until today. The site research of the study was conducted in Adana, real conditions of the products were observed, the relevant firm’s employees and family members were interviewed on site. The analysis of gathered data, examination of photographs and collection of interview notes were performed in Istanbul. In the study, information was gathered and produced by some techniques such as the study of oral history, examination and detail photographing of existing products, research on design stories, design time, requirements, characteristics, production forms and techniques of the products, analysis of the photographs, workshop visits and production inspection-observation. As a result of the research and information generation, a recommendation was presented to the designers, producers and firms (the sector) by which both economic sufficiency can be achieved and design reality can be improved within the framework of the concept of “quality” that is considered necessary to bring a new impulse in the furniture sector within today’s industrial production. The “behavioral model” and “mental structure” that constitutes this quality are interpreted as a holistic state realized with years of experience of the craftsmen. It is believed this holistic structure that improves quality in every moment of life; the formal, artistic, economic and design development considered necessary in the sector can be achieved.

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