Out of each of the furniture needs, the chair may be of most importance. While most other forms (except the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is regarded here in the general sense, from stool to throne to complex makes like the bench and sofa, which may be considered as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously defined.
The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not only a physical support and/or aesthetic piece; it was also a symbol of social rank. Within the past royal courts there were significant signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to sit on a stool. From the past century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been a signifier of superior status, like in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a raised level.
As a furniture construction, the chair is utilised for a range of various forms. There are chairs manufactured to fit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). From the olden days there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can have chairs that can be folded for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our contemporary lifestyle has designated particular chairs for automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair shapes have evolved to match to different human uses. Due to its significant connection with man, the chair lives to its full significance only when being used. Though it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there might be anything inside or not, a chair is seen best and fairly evaluated with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter suit each other. Thus the several parts of the chair have been given names according to the areas of our human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the first role of a chair is to support the body, its worth is judged firstly from how suitably it fulfills this practical role. In the build of the chair, the designer is bound for the static regulations and principal measurements. Through these regulations, however, the chair builder has awesome freedom.
The history of the chair extended over a period of several thousand years. There is evidence of cultures that made individual chair forms, expressions of the highest craft in the industries of skill and creativity. Out of those civilisations, special note must 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 reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of careful scheme, were a finding from discoveries made in tombs. First of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair has four legs designed like those of some animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this design a stable triangular structure was obtained. There was from our understanding no marked difference from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular citizens. The simple variation existed in the decorative ornamentation, in the particulars of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was made as an easily stored seat for army. As a camp stool that type stayed around til much later periods of time. But the stool also then played the task of a ceremonial seat, its original history as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can today be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were in the structure of folding stools but can not be folded because the seats were formed out of wood. The easy construction of the folding stool, composed of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric set between them, reappears some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of these is the folding stool, made from ashwood, which is now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is found not as any ancient fossil still in form but as seen in a trove of pictorial material. The better known is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground near Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of those would be visible. These curved legs were presumed to be crafted with bent wood and were as such needed to bear extreme pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore super strong and were overtly signified.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek chair; quite a few casts of seated Romans display evidence of a denser and apparently kind of more crudely designed klismos. Both designs, the light and heavy, were revived as part of the Classicist era. The klismos chair is evidenced in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in special brands of notable uniqueness of Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China can not be traced as far back as the ancestry of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed collection of images and works of art has been protected, displaying the interiors and exterior of Chinese houses and the designs of furniture. Also preserved from the 16th century are a trove of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that possess an astonishing resemblance to representations of previous chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there existed two standard chair designs in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair was seen both with or without arms though never without the square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to support the back. In one image, though, the stiles were marginally curved by the arms to conform correctly to the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of its back). The three limbs are mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Though the idea of this back splat later had an introduction for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that could merely to a limited limit support corner joints (and furthermore were loose into the bargain) represent an element solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which ends upon the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—acknowledging as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and had on occasion a plaited bottom. These chairs demanded of the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for if too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a way of toppling. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs probably were kept only for senior members of the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have come to China from the West. It does not vary so very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is prettily affixed to the two legs of the stool by means of a curved member, which is often seen with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the overall effect of these furniture forms is stylized. The manufacture and decorative issues are combined in a way that is at the same time naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an outcome of the fact that the individual members do not look to have been constructed by use of either glue or screws, but were mortised into one another and held in its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Artworks show a type of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to show up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board from the back could be folded after loosening some tiny iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture while traveling which, during the same time, gave the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered type of chair is evidenced 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. While this style of chair can also be seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not believed that the design actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender shape; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in considerable amounts, as evidenced from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of those chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself with its elegant proportions and expensive upholstery in gilt leather or fabric edged with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature form—that is to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and has been imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The model owes this popularity to a combination of comfort and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are strongly constructed on craftsmanlike methods in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof employ wood of rather thick measurements; but all members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been sanded away, and more expensive chairs may be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative engraving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is generally used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is occasionally used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more open in style than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and became the favourite in large 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 popular and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
During 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 brands 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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