Greene & Greene style Rocking Chair

In Progress

Blacker Rocking Chair

Greene and Greene designed three chairs in the same motif for the living room of the Blacker house: a side chair, a rocker, and an armchair. Of these, the armchair is deservedly the best known. I feel it is not only one of the Greene's best designs, but one of the best designs ever produced by anyone. It is also a true challenge to build!

My first challenge was one of design. The original rocking chair for the Blacker living room had no arms, nor did it have the very low back as the armchair did. In part, I feel it's a combination of the organic arms which reach out in one continuous motion to grip the floor, and the very low back that gives the original Blacker Armchair it's masculine "anchored to the ground" feeling. The problem became - how do I preserve some of that "anchored " feeling in a rocking chair version with arms? With the need for back support, the very low back of the original armchair would simply not work. Also, since it would destroy any illusion of "anchoring", the very high back typical of many rocking chairs would be out of the question. The Greene's armless rocker had a back that was higher than their armchair but yet not as high as a typical rocker might be. I decided to follow their route for the height of the back. I also splayed the front and back legs out slightly to give some illusion of "anchoring". Splaying the legs too much would make the design appear "cartoonish". It took some re-drawing to find the happy medium - which isn't so apparent without the side-by-side comparison of the different drawn versions. (sorry - I deleted the unused drawings)

This project is also proving to be one of the most technically challenging projects I have ever built. With splayed legs and front legs that are parallelograms, this chair has more than its share of compound angles to deal with. When the chair is done I will have spent more time making jigs than working on the actual rocking chair.

This is not intended as a step-by-step guide, but rather an occasional glimpse into the process.
I will be posting more images as the project progresses.

(drawn without slip seat cushion)