Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The executive dining suite for \u201cC\u201d, MI6\u2019s chief, is not somewhere most people might visit or know much about. Matthew Burt does \u2014 it features his hand-carved furniture. These pieces may not be on view to the public, but the craftsman, who has been making furniture for 47 years in his studio in the misty vales of Wiltshire, has also done many public commissions \u2014 including an altar in oak staves for the church of St Thomas, Salisbury, and visitors\u2019 benches for the Courtauld Gallery and the Ashmolean Museum. And he creates many more works for private individuals.\u00a0With a team of eight apprentices and professional craftsmen, Burt designs and makes sculptural, often curvilinear pieces \u2014 chairs, tables, desks cabinets and dressers among them \u2014 both speculatively and to commission. Distinctively, he often uses \u201cmaverick trees\u201d with characterful markings, mostly from the UK, including tiger and bog oak, burr elm, olive ash, quilted maple and lace wood.\u00a0Some pieces have expressly historical roots, such as a \u201cstaddle stone\u201d ash table that echoes the shape of supports once used for keeping hayricks safe from rodents. In contrast, the pippy elm and inlaid boxwood exterior of a drinks cabinet present a modern, abstract design of interlinking circles that evokes five pebbles cast in a pool of water.\u00a0The tools he uses similarly range \u201cfrom the biblical to the digital\u201d, says\u00a0Burt \u2014 from old-fashioned \u201cspokeshaves\u201d (planing knives) to CNC machines used in automated manufacturing. When I visited, some craftsmen were busy sawing smooth staves out of rough planks from stacks arranged by species. One was adding thin strips of veneer to a cone-shaped \u201cbucket\u201d table in contrasting grains. A twisting sycamore trunk lay on the floor, awaiting metamorphosis.\u00a0Sustainability has been central to Burt\u2019s approach since he began four decades ago: \u201cWe were driven by ecological reasoning even then.\u201d After studying zoology and botany at university, Burt took up an apprenticeship to the Oxfordshire cabinet-maker Richard Fyson. In 1978 he and his wife Celia, who runs the business, bought a house in Wiltshire and constructed a studio in the back garden out of \u201cfound materials\u201d. \u201cWe were middle-class hippies and we were skint,\u201d he remembers. \u201cIt would be much harder to do that today.\u201dBurt has a scientist\u2019s as well as a craftsman\u2019s appreciation of the way trees are shaped by their environment. In the workshop, he points out a \u201cwild type of oak\u201d that had been infected with a fungus that left black lines seeping through the grain. This infection, if the tree is cut down while still alive, \u201cturns an ordinary wood into something amazing\u201d, he says.Burt\u2019s practice has recently branched out into architectural commissions, including a ceiling made of 5,500 sculpted Wiltshire ash \u201cpebbles\u201d that evoke the patterns in the kernel of a sunflower. He has also started on collaborations, for instance with the West Sussex-based furniture designer Katie Walker. Aged 74, he is keen to ensure that his work will have an enduring impact. We all have \u201ca responsibility to the future\u201d, he says. \u201cI\u2019ll never stop thinking about how to make it better.\u201dPrices from the collection from \u00a3525; lead time about 12 weeks; bespoke items take roughly five to seven monthsmatthewburt.comFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The executive dining suite for \u201cC\u201d, MI6\u2019s chief, is not somewhere most people might visit or know much about. Matthew Burt does \u2014 it features his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208376,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208374\/revisions\/208376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}