The History of the Chair
From each of the furniture forms, the chair could be the primary one. While most other forms (save for the bed) are intended to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair is intended to be used here in the largest sense, from stool to throne to complex forms including a bench or sofa, which should be viewed as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not evidently defined.
The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not merely a physical support and an aesthetic craft; it historically is a symbol of social place. Within the past royal courts there were social differences between being led to a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to cope with a stool. In the past century, a director’s or manager’s chair has been seen as iconic of superior status, like in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated platform.
As its furniture construction, the chair is utilised for a range of different models. There are chairs manufactured to fit man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since the past there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs for ending life (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 make chairs that can be folded up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our contemporary lifestyle has demanded particular chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair types have evolved to suit to growing human needs. Because of its unique association with man, the chair exists to its full advantage only when utilised. Whereas it doesn’t make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau if there might be things inside or not, a chair is best seen and evaluated by a person sitting on it, because chair and sitter complement one another. Thus the different parts of the chair are given names corresponding to the areas of the human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the first purpose of a chair is to support our body, its credit is valued principally from how suitably it measures up to this practical use. Within the structure of the chair, the builder is bound under the static legislation and principal measurements. Within these rules, however, the chair designer has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair extends over a period of several thousand years. There is evidence of civilizations that had made individual chair forms, expressive of the topmost endeavour in the areas of technique and creativity. In these such civilisations, individual mention 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 objects of careful make, are a finding from tomb discoveries. First of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair would have four legs designed not unlike those of some animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this way a durable triangular form was made. There was from our knowledge no particular change in the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular populace. The simple difference lies in the intricacy of ornamentation, in the particulars of more expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was crafted to be an easily stored seat for soldiers. As a camp stool this chair stayed around until much later periods of time. But the stool then was designed for the task of a ceremonial seat, its original task as a folding stool being forgotten. This can from evidence be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, formed in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were in the shape of folding stools but cannot be folded as the seats were made of wood. The simple construction of the folding stool, composed of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, can be seen but some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of this type is the folding stool, made of ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not in any ancient fossil still in form but as seen from a trove of pictorial items. The most recognisable is the klismos depicted on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground by Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those are shown. These creative legs were presumably manufactured of bent wood and were therefore bore extreme pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat were therefore very stable and were visibly indicated.
The Romans emulated the Greek style; a number of models of seated Romans offer evidence of a denser and apparently slightly more crudely designed klismos. Both designs, light or heavy, were popularised within the Classicist era. The klismos design is evidenced in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in particular forms of considerable individuality of Denmark and Sweden around 1800.
China
The ancestry of the chair in China cannot be charted as well as in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full serial of images and paintings has been preserved, with images of the interiors and outside of Chinese houses and the furniture. Preserved also of the 16th century are some chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that show an intriguing resemblance to images of past chairs.
As in Egypt, there existed two major chair designs in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. That chair was constructed both with or without arms however never missing a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to firm the back. In one type, though, the stiles had been delicately curved above the arms in order to conform to the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of its back). Each of the three sections were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the innovation of this back splat exercised an inspiration for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden members that just to a restricted limit stabilise corner joints (and were loose into the bargain) represent a feature particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which finishes about the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or is given rounded edges—an acknowledgement as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and may have a plaited seat. These chairs required of the sitter to be stiff and upright; if too much pressure is forced on the back, the chair has a way of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this epoch armchairs probably were allowed only for elderly members of the family, for they were greatly esteemed.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not differ very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a change in that the top rail is intricately fixed to the two legs of the stool by using a curved member, which is often provided with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the ultimate effect of these two furniture items is stylized. The structure and decoration issues are combined in a style that is all at once naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual parts do not look to have been adjoined by either glue or screws, but have been mortised into one another and fixed in position in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also put its name on the chair. Artworks show a kind of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to bring up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board in the back could be folded after loosening some tiny iron hooks. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture for traveling which, at the same time, granted the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is seen in engravings of the interiors of affluent Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this type of chair may also be seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not believed that the style actually started in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of slim measurements; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in vast quantities, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of these chairs lined up against a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its elegant proportions and delicate 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, as progressed in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The model owes this popularity to a combination of leisure and elegance. The seat suits to the human body and allows a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike practices despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them employ wood of relatively thick density; but all members are deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more upmarket items might be further embellished with very delicate and decorative carvings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is generally used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is in some cases used rather than upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more variable in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and became the favourite in many 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 commonly known 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 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.
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, indicate that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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