African Design & Craft

West Africa has an important and very diverse population of craftsmen as well as a rich tradition of craft, although it's not esay to find evidence of this work outside of each of its countries. The pieces of furniture pictured below deserve the attention of those who are drawn to design and who are eager to stray from the beaten path. Well in the African tradition furniture is often an assemblage of new and recycled materials. In the cabinet featured below, for example, the red doors were removed from older pieces and given new life.

The varieties of wood found in Africa are many and more often than not, different from those used for furniture in America and Europe. Link?, dimb, v?ne, frak?, movingu?, padouk, b?t?, dib?tou, teck, sipo, lsapl?i, wengu?, mboss?, framir? are just some of the varieties that can be found. The furniture collection below was created by Joelle de Bussy in Dakar, Senegal. She creates and produces furniture that couples African handicraft with modern European techniques which guaranty the durability of the works.