Of all furniture forms, the chair might be the primary one. While most other objects (except the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair should be used here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to derivative forms for example the bench or sofa, which may be looked upon 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 stimulating as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not only a physical support or an aesthetic item; it was also a symbol of social placement. At the historical royal courts there were important differences between possessing a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to use a stool. In the recent century, a director’s and manager’s chair has been seen as a signifier of superior dignity, like in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a raised platform.
In a furniture purpose, the chair can be employed for a wealth of various forms. There are chairs manufactured to attend to man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). During past times there were chairs for births (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can make chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has derived particular chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair types has evolved to conform to evolving human uses. Because of its unique association with man, the chair exists to its full meaning only when in use. Whereas it doesn’t make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau if there are items inside or not, a chair is best seen and clearly evaluated by a person using it, for chair and sitter suit the other. Thus the individual limbs of a chair have been named corresponding to the areas of a human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the clear work of your chair is to support a human body, its worth is evaluated principally for how suitably it does fulfill this practical purpose. Within the construction of a chair, the chair maker is restricted within particular static legislation and principal measurements. Through these regulations, however, the chair designer has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair lasted a period of several thousand years. There existed societies that created unique chair forms, as expressions of the highest work in the arenas of craft and design. Among these such societies, a note should 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 upshot of masterful make, were found from discoveries made in tombs. First of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair had four legs designed akin to those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, with a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this a durable triangular design was obtained. There appeared to be no noteworthy change in the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary citizens. The general variation exists in the complex ornamentation, in the selection of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was created for an easily portable seat for army officers. As a camp stool this stool stayed during much later points. But the stool also took on the role of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical job as a folding stool simply forgotten. This can now 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 are in the structure of folding stools but cannot be folded as the seats were made from wood. The plain make of the folding stool, composed of two frames that turn on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric held between them, reappeared at some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognised of this kind is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, which is now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The archetypal Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not in any ancient specimen still in form but from a wealth of pictorial evidence. The archetype is the klismos placed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those legs would be shown. These curved legs were most likely to be crafted out of bent wood and were likely to have been needed to bear great pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very durable and were clearly drawn.
The Romans adopted the Greek design; existing models of seated Romans offer evidence of a denser and in appearance slightly less intricately constructed klismos. Both kinds, light and heavy, were revived within the Classicist time. The klismos chair can be found in French Empire chairs, in English Regency, and in special types of marked uniqueness within Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The ancestry of the chair in China cannot be followed as long as in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed serial of drawings and artworks has been preserved, detailing the interior and exteriors of Chinese buildings and the designs of furniture. Another preservation of the 16th century are some chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that possess an astonishing likeness to designs of ancient chairs.
Just as in Egypt, there was two major chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair is found both with or without arms but always with its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to firm the back. In one design, it must be said, the stiles are delicately curved over the arms in order to suit the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a back). The three parts were mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the design of the back splat had an influence on English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that only just to a limited capability support corner joints (as well as being loose additionally) are a feature particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which stops around the rounded staves. All members are round in section or is given rounded edges—a left over perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and occasionally had a plaited texture. These chairs demanded of the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for if too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a habit of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this era armchairs presumably were kept for older people, for they were respected greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have taken to China from the West. It does not differ much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a change in that the top rail is delicately fixed to the two legs of the stool by using a curved member, which is often provided with metal mounts. From a Western viewpoint the overall effect of these two furniture forms is stylized. The manufacture and aesthetic aspects are combined in a way that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an outcome of the way that the individual parts do not appear to have been joined together by use of either glue or screws, but have been mortised into one another and held in its place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its mark on the chair. Works of art project a design of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between the layers, stitched to produce a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board in the back could be folded after unscrewing some tiny iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture for traveling which, at the same era, had the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair can be found 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. Though this type of chair might also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not believed that the design actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in considerable quantities, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of this kind of chairs lined up against 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 centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of forms—that is, as progressed in Paris around 1750—disseminated through most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The style owes this popularity to a combination of relaxation and elegance. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are strongly constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof are constructed from wood of fairly thick density; but all members are deeply molded, all extra wood has been taken away, and finer examples might be further embellished with special delicate and decorative engraving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is in some cases used in place of upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more differentiated in style than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and was popular 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
Within 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, hint that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
For a great deal on reception desks in Melbourne contact Fast Office Furniture today and check our specials.
Tangalooma Island Resort is a paradise located in Tangalooma, Queensland in Australia. Originally, it was a whaling station and was made into an island holiday destination because of its precious flora and fauna and its stunning views. Couples or families looking for a good holiday destination would definitely cherish a Tangalooma Island Resort holiday.
Hawaii is home to many beautiful vacation destinations and holiday reservations to these tropical islands can be made by Travel Online. This iconic tourist destination is well-known for its pristine beaches, moderate climate, world-standard shopping facilities, and distinctive Polynesian culture.