MAKEPEACE'S GOSPEL

WHEN Jeremy Myerson told friends in the design world that he was writing a book on John Makepeace, the furniture designer/craftsman, he was taken aback by the strong reactions it provoked. Since he's known as an intelligent commentator on modern design, with strong leanings towards the clean-lined and sober himself, Myerson's acceptance of the commission could only be understood by some as the act of a literary mercenary. It would have been fine for him to have done a book on Philippe Starck, or Norman Foster. But Makepeace?

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is about John Makepeace that arouses such antipathy in the style-conscious design world. If it was simply that they didn't like his work it might be understandable, but it goes deeper than that. And it's more than a sore patch caused by the rubbing together of craft and design, though there is, Myerson believes, an element of snobbery among the designers. "They like craftsmen to be the poor relations, to tug their forelocks while begging for commissions... And yet here's Makepeace appearing to lord it over them: not only does he appeal, above the heads of the design establishment, directly to the public, who respond to the figurative and decorative in his work - which is precisely what they hate - but then he rubs their noses in it by living in a grand baronial mansion." Inverted snobbery also comes into it: Makepeace's furniture school at Parnham in Dorset certainly raised the odd hackle in the early years when it was seen by some as an elitist establishment for gentlemen carpenters with wood between the ears, though Makepeace strongly refutes this.

Yes, but he's too full of himself, too good at self-promotion, is the other refrain - a characteristic which is somehow rather difficult to square up with the image he presents to the world. If a designer-hustler can be recognised by the cut of his Armani cloth - well, let's just say that the Makepeace look seems to owe more to the local gentleman's outfitters than to the emporiums of W1.

"Makepeace is a true hairshirt, he's almost monastic in his way of life," confides Jeremy Myerson, a statement that is difficult to digest at the precise moment we sweep down the drive towards Parnham, the magnificent Tudor mansion with its 14 acres of formal gardens that is Makepeace's home and workplace. And yet as we tour around, it becomes a less preposterous notion. True, Makepeace is far too ambitious to be a monk but his ambition does not seem to be grounded in personal acquisition. He shows us around Parnham with the slightly detached air of a caretaker rather than an owner. Open to the public at weekends, it is a showcase for his furniture, a living demonstration of his belief that the new can happily coexist with the old - though whether he has proved it here depends very much on whether you share his particular taste in the new. National Trust junkies who wander in by accident, looking for their fix of copper pans in the kitchen and itsy-bitsy trinkets in the drawing room, must come away in severe culture shock, though most of the public, claim the Parnham staff, are "very excited" by the concept.

All the furniture is labelled - not just the stuff in the rooms that have no other function than to exhibit his work, but even the pieces he and his wife, Jennie, use every day. It is a bizarre experience to walk into someone's bedroom and read descriptions of the bed in which he sleeps and the cabinet in which he keeps his socks. It suggests that the owner is: a) very proud of it, b) strapped for cash and hoping to ensnare a commission, or c) does not see anything odd in it at all. With Makepeace you feel the answer is overwhelmingly c), with a bit of a) and b) thrown in. Personal life is at all times secondary to the driving force of his life, which is work.

As a young man, Makepeace was destined for the Church. As a young man he was also called Smith. John Smith. A name that in the 1950s you might have felt was going nowhere - a good sensible name for a curate or a carpenter, but not perhaps much of a calling card for fame. After his father died, Makepeace was released both from paternal ambition and the paternal name. He gave up all thoughts of going into the Church and determined to apprentice himself to a furniture maker. Following this he adopted his maternal grandmother's maiden name: Quaker in origin, but to the ear irresistibly apt with its connotations of mediaeval carpentry.

Even without the memorable name, Makepeace would undoubtedly have made his mark. "He's a radical," says Jeremy Myerson, "he always pushes things to the limit," adding carefully that, "you can admire his extremism without actually liking the extreme pieces themselves." Fortun-ately, there are enough people around who really love his work - and are willing to pay thousands for being one of those privileged few. (As one fellow craftsman puts it: "The good thing about Makepeace is that he puts such a high price on his work that it pushes the market up for everybody else.") Makepeace is unapologetic: "My studio is making furniture for people who are clearly able to afford the best; it is uncompromising in quality and inevitably expensive." But he does not see this as being elitist. "Own-ing something is not the only way of enjoying it," he declares, a judgement that is perhaps easy to make when you're essentially a non-materialist surrounded by possessions, and every bit as annoying as rich people who tell you money isn't everything. "There are always lots of photo-graphs of the work which people will see. No, owning something fine is not necessarily elitist."

Makepeace is well aware that what he calls the "richness" of his furniture (and what his detractors call its "vulgarity") does not necessarily sit well with the times. He believes, however, that people have been conditioned to enjoy the "machine aesthetic" because that is all that is available with present technology. But as technology progresses, he predicts that even mass-produced furniture will become more "complex and expressive". He has felt for some time that design had "become impoverished by this overbearing sense that if it wasn't an industrial aesthetic it wasn't modern". He himself looks to nature for inspiration. "Nature and people have a symbiotic relationship which needs to be reflected in design."

It would be easy to knock Makepeace for his environmental message if it was only conveyed through the imagery of his furniture: the Creation Collection, with its rather literal interpretations of shells, feathers and leaves, as well as more narrative pieces, like the Phoenix table. This has a base of scorched burr oak from which branch laminated oak legs supporting a top of burr oak and holly; Myerson describes it as "an eloquent statement about the capacity of nature to renew itself despite Man's abuse of the earth's resources". This may be the most "fashionable" stuff that Makepeace has done, when you consider the current vogue for driftwood furniture. He makes it very clear, however, that while there might be common ground in the message there is none in the medium: "In design you are looking to direct what is happening - driftwood furniture is more haphazard."

But Makepeace's environmental awareness goes far beyond making statements through chairs. Its ultimate expression lies four miles away from Parnham, at Hooke Park, a 330-acre stretch of forest that he bought from the Forestry Commission in 1983. Parnham, tucked away like a mediaeval retreat with its own small community of live-in students and craftsmen, has a slightly retrogressive air and - for all Makepeace's talk of scholarships and penniless students - it is difficult to shake off elitist associations. Hooke Park is altogether more ambitious: industrial in scale and global in its vision. For here in the middle of the forest are the extraordinary beginnings of a new ecology, possibly a new rural economy, represented by a surreal scattering of futuristic organic buildings made from "thinnings"; ie, trees that are uprooted in order to allow those around them to grow to best advantage. Thinnings represent half the annual forest crop yet have little commercial value, being sold for firewood or pulp.

Makepeace's vision has been to gather together a team of foresters, biologists, engineers and architects to establish a woodland design, research and development centre to find new uses for these forest thinnings. With consultation from the celebrated German "organic architect" Otto Frei, Makepeace commissioned the architect Richard Burton of ABK to build the first "Prototype House", at a cost of pounds 50,000. This was followed by the Training Centre, a dramatic arched structure clad in a polymer fabric which houses the workshops for developing new products out of thinnings. Ultimately, the aim is to have a residential college on site, with accommodation for staff and students in the form of five houses designed by Edward Cullinan, an architect well known for his sensitive work with wood. The money to build these is still being raised. No doubt Make-peace will use those reviled skills at selling himself (or rather his vision) to raise the necessary sponsorship. Perish the thought, he may even have to invest in an Armani suit.

Makepeace is 56, has no children, no right hand man, to carry on his work when he carves his final wooden resting- place. Parnham, you suspect, will fade away, his furniture will turn up at the V & A and perhaps be looked at with new respect by some as a link in a chain that led to Hooke Park. But it is Hooke Park that will be the lasting legacy.

! 'Makepeace: a Spirit of Adventure in Craft and Design' by Jeremy Myerson is published by Conran Octopus at pounds 35