In Memory of Teacher and Craftsman Berthold Schwaiger

My first meeting with Berthold Schwaiger was indirectly tied into my founding of this website. In 1996, I was looking for a woodworking class, having become enchanted by the medium following a visit to the American Craft Expo in Evanston, Illinois. The search wasn’t an easy one. Ultimately I discovered the Elston Woodworking School in Chicago and its instructor, Berthold Schwaiger.

The search for the class would, several years later, inspire me to found a website – Classearch.com – and a magazine – Chicago Learning Guide. But that would come later. Before that Berthold would inspire me with his love of wood, design, teaching, and people.

A brilliant designer, engineer, and craftsman, Berthold could do things with wood that I had thought impossible, turning the stuff into something malleable and plastic and whimsical. But his passion lay with teaching. Instilling students with his mantra of “building furniture to last as long as it takes a tree to grow” was his mission, and one he pursued for many years, prior to his premature death December 13, 2006, at the age of 58.

I would take several classes with Berthold at the Elston school and later in Oak Park, Forest Park, and Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, where he opened his own studio and the Chicago Bauhaus Academy. While I have yet to make woodworking the everyday hobby I aspire to, Berthold and I became friends. He would also become one of the first advertisers on my website and in my magazine. I would become a customer, commissioning a unique bed, side tables, and book and display shelves over the years.

Berthold’s journey began in post-war Germany, starting at age 14 as an apprentice. He would spend eight years working through the guild system before moving on to study architecture and design in Cologne and Berlin. He would later travel through Europe and India, teaching and building. In 1991 he arrived in Chicago.

Berthold was an intensely curious person who invoked a wide array of interests in his work. Architect Alden B. Dow and 13th-century Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci were inspirations.

He could also be volatile and stubborn. He loved to teach and expected work to be done his way. Working twelve-hour days was commonplace for him and his commitment to the school overwhelming. We would meet often for breakfast and he would tell me how hard he was working. I would sometimes suggest he simplify his life and give up the school. He wouldn't hear of it. "Teaching is what I'm here for," he would tell me. "It's my calling."

Berthold built furniture to last as long as it takes a tree to grow. People sadly, do not last as long. Berthold lives on in his furniture – which will last far longer than any of us – and his hundreds of students, some of whom carry on his tradition of building and unique design. His apprentices hope to maintain his studio and school and classes are continuing.