Ethnika Time Origins
Welcome to Ethnika Time!
This is the first entry of the Ethnika Time Blog produced by our team. It is dedicated to celebrate history, evolution and development of world cultures.
In Ethnika Time we work with enthusiasm to select and bring to you the best available world products, while learning and sharing the origin and evolution of arts and crafts, applied to the items we use every day.
We would like to talk about our name. After the 19th century, the word “ethnik” became associated with non-European cultures, but the original Greek word “ethnos” (ἔθνος) means “nation”. In simple words, Ethnika Time means All Nations’ Time: we celebrate the diversity of art, furniture, utensils and mobility from diverse times and geographies.
The majority of objects that surrounds us, whether industrial or hand-made, have been originated centuries even thousands of years ago, far before our own time. This can be studied through architecture, the “Mother of the Arts” as the great architect of the 20th Century Frank Lloyd Wright used to call it, and indeed to all different art manifestations, whether functional or artistic. Below, "Fallinwater" design and built by Wright in 1936, the most famous house ever built, in Pensylvania, US.
Home Furniture, Kitchen Utensils, Gadgets and (what we define today as) appliances, which basically are tools, they all can be traced back in time. Our ancestors not only used the same kind of artefacts, they were (sometimes) more effective than ours…
From now on, in this Blog we will explore the rich universe of art and artifacts that has led to the most complex system of utilitarian objects ever produced -thanks to industrialisation- in contemporary times.
The main difference between what we produce today compared to old times does not reside in ways of manufacturing, because industrialisation does not mean sophisticated production technics, but rather the intention of careful and persistent work: industry comes from Latin “industria”, “diligens”, assiduous, diligent, from “diligere”: love, take delight in.
Classic Designs
One of the main concepts we will show you in the Ethnika Time Blog is that contemporary items, and many of those we bring to you in our online shopping facility, are inspired in classic designs that have survived for centuries and millennia: desks items, kitchen utensils, lamps, chairs, pieces of furniture and many utilitarian objects, they all belong to a group of companion artefacts that have been used since ever. Including mobility items: before cars there were horses; we still use shoulder bags, carried by Icemen 6,000 years ago. A staircase, for thousands of years now, has one step after the other one... the essence of a staircase remains the same. Particularities change, like this beautiful Art Nouveau piece from 1899 designed by Jules Brunfaut, and murals by M. Hannon Baudouin:
We hope you enjoy our approach and visit our shop, that continuously expands to serve your needs and, most important, fulfil your dreams.
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