The History of the Chair

From each of the furniture needs, the chair may be of the most importance. While many other forms (apart from the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair should be viewed here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to derivative items like the bench or sofa, which might be viewed as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously definitive.
The social history of the chair is as stimulating as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not just a physical support or an aesthetic creation; it can also be symbolic of social standing. In the old royal courts there were clear differences between being seated on a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, and having to cope with a stool. Since the recent century, the director's and/or manager's chair has been regarded as an indicator of superior dignity, like in democratic governments the speaker sits on a high-set platform.
As its furniture creation, the chair can be utilised for a variety of variations. There are chairs created to fit man's age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since historical days there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can make chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has designated new chairs for automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair forms has perfected to match to differing human desires. From its unique association with man, the chair exists to its full importance only when in use. Although it does not make a difference to one's appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers if there might be items inside or not, a chair is best seen and clearly evaluated with a person sitting on it, for chair and sitter need one another. Thus the various areas of the chair have been given names according to the elements of the human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the obvious role of a chair is to support our human body, its credit is judged firstly from how suitably it fulfills this practical role. In the structure of the chair, the builder is restricted for particular static legislation and principal measurements. In these restrictions, however, the chair creator has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair lasts over dates of several thousand years. There are civilizations that created unique chair shapes, expressions of the leading object in the arenas of technique and aesthetics. Within such societies, a mention can 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 lifetimes of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
EgyptTwo ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the result of skilled make, were found from tombs. The first of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair has four legs structured like those of some animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported by vertical stretchers. In this way a strong triangular structure was crafted. There was in our understanding no noteworthy variation between the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular populace. The main change was in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the evidence of pricier inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was designed for an easily packed seat for army. As a camp stool that kind stayed until much later points in time. But the stool then was designed for the character of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical history as a folding stool being forgotten. This can from today's evidence be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, created in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are constructed in the construction of folding stools but cannot be folded because the seats were created of wood. The simple make of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, is seen at some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most well known of this type is the folding stool, of ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and RomeThe iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not in any ancient object still extant but in a trove of pictorial objects. The iconic kind is the klismos posited on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of these legs were visible. These creative legs were considered to have been executed out of bent wood and were probably bore a large amount of pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore extremely solid and were overtly signified.
The Romans embued the Greek design; evidence of statues of seated Romans show chairs of a more heavyset and in appearance slightly less intricately crafted klismos. Both kinds, the light and the heavy, were popularised in the Classicist time. The klismos design is seen in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some special forms of marked individuality within Denmark and Sweden around 1800.

ChinaThe history of the chair in China is not able to be charted as far back as in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed series of images and artworks had been preserved, displaying the interiors and exteriors of Chinese households and the designs of furniture. Kept also since the 16th century are a number of chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that possess an astonishing likeness to designs of older chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, two chair designs persisted in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair is designed both with or without arms but always having the square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to support the back. In one type, however, the stiles were delicately curved over the arms so as to suit the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of the chairback). Together, the three limbs were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. While the design of a back splat later had an introduction for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that only just to a restricted capability embolden corner joints (and then are loose additionally) represent a design exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which closes around the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or have rounded edges—acknowledging perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and might have had a plaited bottom. These chairs required the sitter to remain stiff and upright; if too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a way of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese households of this epoch armchairs presumably were reserved only for elderly people, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have come to China from the West. It does not differ that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a change in that the top rail is elegantly held to the two legs of the stool by use of a curved member, which is often possessing metal mounts. From a Western point of view the overall effect of these furniture styles is stylized. The construction and decoration parts are combined in a way that is all at once naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an outcome of the way that the individual members do not appear to have been constructed by either glue or screws, but have been mortised onto one another and locked into place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th centuryThe Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also left its mark on the chair. Works of art project a kind of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to produce a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board from the back could be folded after unscrewing some small iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture while traveling which, in the same time, possessed the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.


The Netherlands: 17th centuryA low, square, upholstered kind of chair is seen in engravings of interiors of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this type of chair is also seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not decided that the form actually began in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in considerable quantities, as evidenced from one of Abraham Bosse's engravings, in which a whole row of these chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself by its elegant proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric edged with fringes.

France and England: 17th and 18th centuriesThe French Rococo chair in its most mature of styles—that is, as brought out in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and was imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The style owes its popularity to a combination of comfort and delicacy. 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 made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof are made from wood of quite thick density; but each member is deeply molded, all extra wood has been sanded away, and finer items would be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engravings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry should be used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is in some cases used rather than upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more variable in design than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and became the favourite 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 popularised and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th centuryIn 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 products 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.
ModernAfter 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.For a great deal on executive furniture in Melbourne contact Fast Office Furniture
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