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From all the furniture items, the chair could be the most imperative. While the majority of other items (except the bed) are intended to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair is intended to be said here in the most general sense, from stool to throne to complex pieces like a bench or sofa, which may be seen as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not evidently definitive.

The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not simply a physical support and/or an aesthetic artwork; it is also a symbol of social hierarchy. Within the old royal courts there were social differences between possessing a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but no arms, or having to use a stool. Since the recent century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been iconic of superior standing, like in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated floor.

In its furniture form, the chair ranges from a wealth of different purposes. There are chairs manufactured to match man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). During the olden days there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs 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 make chairs that can be folded for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.

Our modern lifestyle has designated unique chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair shapes has been adapted to fit to changing human needs. From its unique relationship with man, the chair exists to its full meaning only when utilised. Though it isn’t relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers whether there is anything inside or not, a chair is seen best and regarded best with a person sitting on it, because chair and sitter need the other. Thus the several elements of the chair are named according to the elements of our human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the basic purpose of the chair is to support the body, its worth is tested generally from how suitably it does measure up to this practical function. In the manufacture of a chair, the builder is bound under the static laws and principal measurements. Through these restrictions, however, the chair builder has great freedom.

The history of the chair lasted over dates of several thousand years. There were peoples that had unique chair forms, expressive of the topmost work in the arenas of craft and design. In those cultures, special note 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 lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of masterful scheme, were known from tomb discoveries. The first one of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair had four legs crafted akin to those of an animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported by vertical stretchers. In this way a durable triangular construction was obtained. There was from our knowledge no notable variation in the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary non-royals. The real difference lied in the complex ornamentation, in the choice of pricey inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most likely was created for an easily stored seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the form persevered til much later times. But the stool then was designed as the purpose of a ceremonial seat, its original role as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can today be noted, 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 are constructed in the shape of folding stools but can’t be folded as the seats are worked with wood. The easy manufacture of the folding stool, composed of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric set between them, is seen some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of these is the folding stool, made of ashwood, seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The archetypal Greek chair, the klismos, is found not from any ancient specimen still around but as seen in a large amount of pictorial material. The archetype is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place near 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 odd legs were considered to have been crafted from bent wood and were as such bore a large amount of pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore super strong and were overtly pointed out.

The Romans emulated the Greek style; evidence of casts of seated Romans display chairs of a more heavyset and are a slightly less intricately crafted klismos. Both features, the light or heavy, were brought back in the Classicist era. The klismos chair can be evidenced in French Empire chairs, in English Regency, and in some particular types of notable iconicism of Denmark and Sweden during 1800.

China
The ancestry of the chair in China isn’t able to be traced as far back as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken series of images and paintings has been kept safe, detailing the inside and outer parts of Chinese buildings and their furniture. Also preserved of the 16th century are a number of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that bear an astonishing likeness to images of older chairs.

Just like in Egypt, there were two standard chair designs in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair was found both with or without arms however never missing a square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to hold up the back. In one kind, it has been found, the stiles were lightly curved over the arms for the purpose of sit correctly with the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of its chairback). The three sections are mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the idea of the back splat exercised a foundation for English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that only to a limited extent embolden corner joints (and furthermore are loose as a result) are a signature particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which stops over the rounded staves. All members are round in section or has rounded edges—referable perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and occasionally had a plaited texture. These chairs needed the sitter to be stiff and upright; for if too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a way of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs presumably were kept for elderly persons, for they were greatly esteemed.

The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have taken to China from the West. It is akin much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a variation in that the top rail is intricately fixed to the two legs of the stool by means of a curved member, which is more often than not possessing metal mounts. From a Western perspective the overall effect of these two furniture items is stylized. The constructive and decorative issues are combined in a style that is all at once naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is a result of the manner that the individual items do not appear to have been held together by means of either glue or screws, but were mortised on one another and held in its place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.

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

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered type of chair can be evidenced in engravings of 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 design of chair may also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not believed that the style actually started in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of slender measurements; 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 surmisable from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of these chairs lined up along a wall. The form asserts itself with its harmonious proportions and expensive upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed with fringes.

France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature style—that is to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—spread over 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 grants a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed strongly on craftsmanlike methods even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of quite thick density; but each member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been cut away, and finer designs might be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative engravings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for all of the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is occasionally used instead of upholstery.

English chairs in the 18th century were more differentiated in style than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which came from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and won favour 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.

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