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Out of all furniture items, the chair may be the most imperative. While most of the other objects (apart from the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair is intended to be looked upon here in the larger sense, from stool to throne to further pieces for example a bench or sofa, which should be looked upon as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously distinguished.

The social history of the chair is as stimulating as its history as art and craft. The chair is not merely a physical support and an aesthetic creation; it is also a signifier of social status. From the Medieval royal courts there were clear differences between being led to a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, or having to squat on a stool. From the 20th century, a director’s and/or manager’s chair has developed an indicator of superior dignity, like in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on a raised platform.

As its furniture form, the chair ranges from a wealth of different purposes. There are chairs created to fit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). From historical times there were chairs for births (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We make 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 for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.

Our contemporary lifestyle has demanded special chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair shapes has perfected to suit to growing human requirements. Due to its particular connection with man, the chair exists to its full advantage only when in employ. Although it is not relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers if there is anything inside or not, a chair is really seen best and regarded best by a person utilising it, because chair and sitter need each other. Thus the several limbs of the chair were given labels according to the areas of our human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the clear role of a chair is to support a human body, its value is valued firstly for how completely it measures up to this practical function. Within the design of the chair, the carpenter is restricted in some static law and principal measurements. In these limits, however, the chair designer has great freedom.

The history of the chair lasted over an epoch of several thousand years. There is evidence of peoples that held significant chair types, as seen of the foremost craft in the spheres of craft and aesthetics. Among these such peoples, particular 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 ascendancy of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the structures of skilled craft, are found from tomb findings. First of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair had four legs structured similar to those of some animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. From this design a stable triangular structure was obtained. There seemed to be no noteworthy change between the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical people. The real variation lies in the complexity of ornamentation, in the evidence of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most likely was crafted to be an easily stored seat for officers. As a camp stool that kind persevered til much later periods. But the stool also was made as the character of a ceremonial seat, its original job as a folding stool simply forgotten. This can now be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the structure of folding stools but cannot be folded because the seats are formed with wood. The plain construction of the folding stool, composed of two frames that turn on metal bolts and bear a seat of leather or fabric held between them, then came again but some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognised of this kind is the folding stool, made of ashwood, seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not as any ancient fossil still around but from a trove of pictorial evidence. The best recognised is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area by Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which could be visible. These creative legs were presumably manufactured from bent wood and were likely to have been bore a large amount of pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore very durable and were plainly indicated.

The Romans embued the Greek designs; existing models of seated Romans are chairs of a thicker and are a slightly less intricately constructed klismos. Both types, the light or heavy, were popularised as part of the Classicist period. The klismos design is known in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in special forms of notable iconicism in Denmark and Sweden during 1800.

China
The past of the chair in China cannot be traced as far as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an undamaged folio of images and paintings had been preserved, displaying the interior and outer parts of Chinese households and their furniture. Another preservation since the 16th century are a number of chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that possess an interesting similarity to designs of ancient chairs.

As were the designs in Egypt, there were two particular chair forms in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. This chair was constructed both with and without arms although always with its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to give support to the back. In one kind, however, the stiles were marginally curved by the arms for the purpose of conform to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a back). Together, the three limbs were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. While the idea of the back splat then had an inspiration for English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that would merely to a limited extent support corner joints (and were loose as a result) signify an element signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which stops about the rounded staves. All the members are round in section or possesses rounded edges—acknowledging maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and might have had a plaited bottom. These chairs required of the sitter to stay stiff and upright; for if too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to collapse. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs likely were kept for older family members, for they were held in great respect.

The Chinese folding stool is understood to have travelled to China from the West. It does not differ that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a change in that the top rail is delicately fixed to the two legs of the stool by a curved member, which is usually seen with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resulting effect of these furniture styles is stylized. The constructive and aesthetic parts are combined in a way that is at the same time naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual members do not seem to have been fixed by either glue or screws, but had been mortised onto one another and fixed in place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also had its signature on the chair. Paintings display a style of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to produce a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a similar board at the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture in traveling which, during the same era, possessed the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair is found in engravings of the interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this style of chair can also be found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not certain that the innovation actually originated in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of slim dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in large numbers, as can be surmised 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 fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed with fringes.

France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of forms—that is to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The chair owes its popularity to a combination of relaxation and elegance. The seat conforms to the human body and grants a relaxed seated 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 conceal all the joints, which are constructed strongly on craftsmanlike principles even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of quite thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been taken away, and more upmarket chairs would be further embellished with very delicate and decorative engravings. 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; crosshatched cane is sometimes used in place of upholstery.

English chairs in the 18th century were more open in design than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which came from the royal circles in Paris and Versailles within most of France and won favour 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 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 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.

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