The Shakers: A World in the Making at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein

In 1984 Sister Mildred Barker opined, "I almost expect to be remembered as a chair, or a table"1: an allusion to the furniture, for all the chairs, that popularly stand proxy for the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, a.k.a. the Shakers, to whose members Sister Mildred Barker belonged. Furniture, chairs, that for all their charms, and the great many convincing arguments in their favour, tend to restrict the popular view of and on the Shakers and thereby to limit popular