Vico von Voss is a German-born, Maryland-based maker of custom furniture. He has also built for his family this amazing house, which uses no nails; the whole thing is held together with wooden pegs and dovetailing. Voss is a great lover of wood and used many different kinds in the construction; he says that in building he lets the wood guide him.
Below, his shop. Eat your heart out, guys.
Below, a table and door by Voss. Description
of the house here; lots of images of his furniture and joinery at
his web site.
"He has also built for his family this amazing house, which uses no nails; the whole thing is held together with wooden pegs and dovetailing."
ReplyDeleteI am neither a carpenter nor an architect, but don't wooden pegs fail a lot sooner and a lot more catastrophically than nails do? I mean, yeah, wooden house is lovely and attractive, but what's wrong with using nails for the added durability?
To be fair, I might just have personal biases from having lived substantial portions of my life in storm zones. I imagine Germany doesn't exactly suffer the ravages of terribly many hurricanes or Nor'easters, so I can understand the origin of the mentality. And while Maryland may boast fairly balmy and forgiving weather, they do still ocassionally get hit by large storm systems.
But maybe this is all a moot point? Perhaps the wooden pegs are easy to replace - and if you're the kind of person who has the energy to build houses out of wood just because, I imagine you wouldn't be too chuffed about doing a bit of maintenance every decade or so.
Either way, love these kinds of posts!
No, not really; there are medieval barns still standing with wooden pegs. And nails rust. The advantage to nails is that they are a lot faster and can be used by people with less skill.
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