The History of the Chair

From all the furniture pieces, the chair may be the most imperative. While most other items (except the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair can be viewed here in the most common sense, from stool to throne to further makes for example the bench or sofa, which might be regarded as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not overtly distinguished.

The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as art and craft. The chair is not just a physical support and/or aesthetic artwork; it historically is an indicator of social rank. At the old royal courts there were clear signifiers between having a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, or having to utilise a stool. During the 20th century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has become an identifier of superior position, like in democratic governments the speaker sits on a high-set platform.

In a furniture form, the chair is utilised for a number of various models. There are chairs designed to fit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). During past times there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. There are chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.

Modern day living has designated new chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair shapes has perfected to conform to evolving human requirements. Because of its particular association with man, the chair lives to its full importance only when being utilised. Though it does not make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers if there might be anything inside or not, a chair is seen best and judged best by a person sitting on it, for chair and sitter complement the other. Thus the various areas of the chair are named according to the names of the human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the clear role of the chair is to support our human body, its value is judged generally for how suitably it does fulfill this practical job. Within the manufacture of a chair, the designer is bound within the static regulations and principal measurements. Within these regulations, however, the chair creator has large freedom.

The history of the chair lasts over dates of several thousand years. There are societies that had significant chair shapes, as expressive of the topmost work in the spheres of technique and design. In these societies, special mention needs to be made of ancient Egypt and Greece; China; Spain and The Netherlands in the 17th century; England in the 18th century; and France in the 18th century during the lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of masterful make, are today a finding from discoveries made in tombs. One of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair had four legs designed not unlike those of a particular animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this design a strong triangular structure was created. There seems to be no marked change in the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical people. The main change lies in the intricacy of ornamentation, in the choice of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was crafted to be an easily portable seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool the form persisted during much later points in time. But the stool also was designed for the role of a ceremonial seat, its original history as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can from evidence be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the structure of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats were formed of wood. The simplistic build of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that spin on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, is seen at some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of these is the folding stool, of ashwood, now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not as any ancient fossil still around but in a trove of pictorial evidence. The best recognised is the klismos depicted on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place in outer Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which would be seen. These unusual legs were considered to be executed with bent wood and were as such had great pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore very solid and were plainly signified.

The Romans embued the Greek style; a number of models of seated Romans show designs of a thicker and apparently rather crudely designed klismos. Both kinds, light and heavy, were popularised within the Classicist era. The klismos style is seen in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in particular types of considerable individuality in Denmark and Sweden from 1800.

China
The past of the chair in China cannot be traced as far back as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full folio of sketches and artworks has been preserved, detailing the interior and exterior of Chinese houses and the designs of furniture. Also kept from the 16th century are some chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that display an interesting familiarity to pictures of older chairs.

As were the designs in Egypt, there existed two standard chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair is constructed both with and without arms but never missing the square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to give support to the back. In one style, however, the stiles could be slightly curved on top of the arms for the purpose of suit the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of the back). Together, all three areas are mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of the Chinese back splat had an influence on English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden items that only just to a limited ability reinforce corner joints (and were loose as a result) represent a feature particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which finishes around the rounded staves. Members are round in section or has rounded edges—acknowledging perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and occasionally had a plaited bottom. These chairs needed the sitter to remain stiff and upright; for when too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a tendency to collapse. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this period armchairs presumably were reserved only for older people in the family, for they were greatly esteemed.

The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have come to China from the West. It does not vary that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a dissimilarity in that the top rail is prettily joined to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is often seen with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the overall effect of both furniture styles is stylized. The construction and decoration parts are combined in a style that is all at once both naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an upshot of the way that the individual parts do not appear to have been fixed by means of either glue or screws, but are mortised into one another and held in place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Artworks project a style of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to show up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board in the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture when traveling which, at the same era, had the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair can be displayed in engravings of interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this design of chair can also be seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not determined that the design actually originated in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in vast quantities, as surmisable from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which a whole row of this kind of chairs lined up along a wall. The style asserts itself by virtue of its harmonious proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric bordered with fringes.

France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature form—that was, to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The style owes this popularity to a combination of comfort and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and permits a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are little upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations of those are made from wood of fairly thick dimensions; but every member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been sanded away, and finer examples may be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative engravings. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is in some cases used rather than upholstery.

English chairs of the 18th century were more differentiated in design than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and found favour in several parts of the Continent, had no parallel in England. Prior to 1740, the most commonly used wood was walnut; thereafter, and for the rest of the century, it was mahogany. Walnut, though beautiful in hue, was soft and therefore less suited to wood carving than to rounded, curving forms. Outer surfaces, such as the back and seat frame, were usually veneered. During the walnut period, highly overstuffed armchairs, covered with leather or embroidered material, were also developed. The best upholstery of this period is precisely and firmly modelled and accentuated by braiding or tacks. When imports of mahogany became common, no specifically new chair designs appeared, but the character of the woodwork changed. Mahogany, having a firmer, closer grain, could be cut thinner, which meant that individual parts of the chair could be more slender in shape. Mahogany also lent itself better to carving than walnut. Carving was concentrated more on the arms and back than on the legs, which as a rule were straight and smooth with chamfered (bevelled) edges and molding. There was a wealth of variety in chairback designs, featuring elegant, pierced, vase-shaped splats or two upright posts connected by horizontal slats (ladderback).

Alongside the French Rococo chair and the best English chairs in walnut and mahogany, the stick-back chair was relatively unaffected by the stylistic changes of the day. Originally a medieval form, known, for example, from paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and still found in mid-20th century in the churches and inns of southern Europe, the stick-back chair (in all of its variations) consists basically of a solid, saddle-shaped seat into which the legs, back staves, and possibly the armrests are directly mortised. This typically peasant form underwent a renewal and a process of refinement in England and America during the 18th century. Under the name Windsor chair (a term that seems to have been used for the first time in 1731) or Philadelphia chair, it became reknowned and was widely distributed throughout the world.

Late 18th to 20th century
In the Neoclassical period, no basic changes took place in chair forms, but legs became straight and dimensions lighter. Backs in the shape of classical vases replaced the fanciful outlines of the Rococo period. Around 1800, freely executed imitations of Greek and Roman chairs of the klismos type, with curved legs and backrest, appeared. French chairs of the Empire period, executed in dark mahogany and embellished with ornate bronze mounts, created a ponderous effect.

In cheaper styles of inferior workmanship, bourgeois chairs of the 19th century carried on the traditions of the 17th and 18th centuries. The only real innovations were the bentwood (wood that has been bent and shaped) chairs in beech that became popular all over the world and were still made in the 20th century. Around 1900 the continental Art Nouveau and Jugendstil styles (French and German styles characterized by organic foliate forms, sinuous lines, and non-geometric forms), and the Arts and Crafts movement in England (established by the English poet and decorator William Morris to reintroduce idealized standards of medieval craftsmanship), gave rise to original chair designs by Eugène Gaillard in France, Henry van de Velde in Belgium, Josef Hoffman in Austria, Antonio Gaudí in Spain, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland. These new furniture styles did not exercise wide, let alone decisive, influence. The Art Nouveau chairs designed by the French architect Hector Guimard, for example, are collector’s pieces, but his name is known to a broader public only because of his fanciful entrances to the Paris Métro.

Modern
After World War I, the Bauhaus school in Germany became a creative centre for revolutionary thinking, resulting, for example, in tubular steel chairs designed by the architects Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and others. During World War II, the aircraft industry accelerated the development of laminated wood and molded plastic furniture. The dominant chair forms of this period go back to designs by Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson, and Charles and Ray Eames. Rapid technical developments, in conjunction with an ever-increasing interest in human-factors engineering, or ergonomics, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.

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