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Out of all furniture objects, the chair could be paramount. While most of the other items (apart from the bed) are intended to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair is intended to be regarded here in the largest sense, from stool to throne to developed makes including a bench or sofa, which might be seen as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously labeled.

The social history of the chair is as stimulating as its history as art and craft. The chair is not merely a physical support or aesthetic piece of art; it can also be an indicator of social rank. In the old royal courts there were plain connotations between being seated on a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, and having to squat on a stool. During the last century, a director’s or manager’s chair has developed a signifier of superior status, and even in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a raised level.

In its furniture construction, the chair holds a wealth of various models. There are chairs designed to fit man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since past days there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs used to die in (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We have chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.

Modern living has developed unique chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair shapes have changed to conform to different human requirements. For its particular association with man, the chair exists to its full meaning only when used. Whereas it does not make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers whether there are items inside or not, a chair is really seen best and fairly judged with a person utilising it, because chair and sitter complement the other. Thus the individual parts of the chair have been given names like the parts of a human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the primary work of a chair is to support our human body, its value is valued firstly by how fully it measures up to this practical function. In the creation of the chair, the chair maker is bound within particular static law and principal measurements. In these limitations, however, the chair designer has extensive freedom.

The history of the chair is an era of several thousand years. There is evidence of peoples that had made individual chair types, expressive of the principal object in the areas of technique and design. Out of these cultures, 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 lifetimes of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the items of careful scheme, were known from tomb discoveries. One of the two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair would have had four legs designed similar to those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. From this a durable triangular construction was crafted. There was from our view no noteworthy variation from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common populace. The real variation lied in the intricacy of ornamentation, in the evidence of pricey inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all likelihood was developed as an easily portable seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the form continued until much later periods. But the stool then was created as the use of a ceremonial seat, its original task as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can now be noted, 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 shape of folding stools but aren’t able to be folded because the seats were made from wood. The simple manufacture of the folding stool, made of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, then came again some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of these is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is found not from any ancient fossil still around but found in a large amount of pictorial evidence. The significant kind is the klismos depicted on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground by Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of which were displayed. These curved legs were possibly created from bent wood and were probably put under huge pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very solid and were visibly indicated.

The Romans borrowed from the Greek style; evidence of casts of seated Romans show evidence of a denser and in appearance somewhat more crudely constructed klismos. Both kinds, the light and the heavy, were revived within the Classicist epoch. The klismos chair is evidenced in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in particular types of notable uniqueness within Denmark and Sweden around 1800.

China
The ancestry of the chair in China is not able to be tracked as well as chairs in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full folio of images and works of art was protected, displaying the interior and exterior of Chinese houses and the furniture. Also kept of the 16th century are a number of chairs crafted of wood or lacquered wood, that show an interesting familiarity to representations of older chairs.

Just as in Egypt, there existed two particular chair designs in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair can be designed both with or without arms but never missing its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to hold up the back. In one form, it has been seen, the stiles are delicately curved above the arms in order to suit the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of its chairback). Together, all three parts are mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the innovation of the back splat then had an inspiration for English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden members that would only to a particular capability stabilise corner joints (as well as being loose additionally) indicate a design particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which closes over the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or is given rounded edges—referable perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and had on occasion a plaited form. These chairs required of the sitter to stay stiff and upright; for when too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to topple over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs presumably were reserved only for elderly people in the family, for they were greatly respected.

The Chinese folding stool is thought to have been brought to China from the West. It is akin so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a change in that the top rail is intricately affixed to the two legs of the stool by a curved member, which is more often than not possessing metal mounts. From a Western viewpoint the ultimate effect of both furniture items is stylized. The structure and aesthetic issues are combined in a way that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is a result of the way that the individual members do not look to have been affixed by use of either glue or screws, but are mortised into one another and fixed in its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also put its name on the chair. Works of art show a type of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to show up a pattern of small pads. The front board and a corresponding board from the back could be folded after unscrewing some little iron hooks. Therefore the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture while traveling which, in the same time, held the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair is displayed in engravings of the interior of affluent 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 might also be seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not decided that the innovation actually was born in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in vast amounts, 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 form asserts itself by 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 is, as brought out in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The design owes such popularity to a combination of leisure and delicacy. The seat conforms to the human body and grants a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Generally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike practices despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof are constructed from wood of quite thick dimensions; but every member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive designs would be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative carvings. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is usually used for all of the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is in some cases used in place of upholstery.

English chairs in the 18th century were more open in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and was popular 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 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 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.

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