Outrage.

THE DIGNITY AND HONEST FUNCTIONALISM OF SHAKER PHILOSOPHY IS TRADUCED IN THIS CRUDE COMMERCIAL ATTEMPT TO MARRY MODERN NEEDS WITH 'TRADITION'.

The current trend for 'brand stretching' reaches its unnatural conclusion with the 'Shaker Workshops(r) Home Office'. The concept of applying a well-known marque to a completely different product line has been round for some time, and even architects are not immune: Foster's benign bus stop for J. C. Decaux being just a stone's throw from the Foster uPVC self-assembly conservatory.

But just what is it that makes today's Shaker home office suite so indifferent, so unappealing? This cannot be explained away in a haze of postmodern double coding. On one level, a coherent nineteenth-century Shaker aesthetic for the connoisseur; on a baser level concessions to current functional needs. This is, in fact, a case of total destruction of design and mutilation of morality. The crudely castorized chair is amputated of proportion. The horizontally deformed drawer destroys the symmetry of composition, while creating ergonomics for the touch typing orang-utan. Ingenuity hides the keyboard, but not the workstation; dishonesty of expression being only half-heartedly adopted. This is certainly enough to have the order's founder, Sister Anne, not merely shaking, but spinning in her grave from righteous outrage.