Chairs are a wonderful design challenge with the need for comfort, strength and good looks all in a single product, preferably also with attributes of lightness and affordability.
Professor Clive Edwards from the School of Art atLough- borough University gave a lecture on the subject and made me think about it: we saw a long list of ‘iconic’ chairs but I wondered if we must really admire them unquestionably.
The Barcelona chair is very stylish and often found in reception areas to make a good impression. But getting out of it elegantly without the help of arm rests is a bit of a tour the force. And when I saw the big Eames chair in the tinyBarbiconflat of an architect I wondered how much time he had relaxing in it to read, watch TV or look out of the window…and how he shared it with his wife. Did they take turns or was it just a rarely used statement?
Professor Edwards explored the relationship chairs have with‘authority, identity, distinction and domination’.
Here one most over the top was thethrone for a Masonic Grand Master… and a more unusual ones was for the King of the Camaroons, who received a Portugese delegation sitting on one of his subjects.
To show how wide ranging the function of chairs can be we saw a ‘Health Jolting’ chair of 1880 that claimed to prolong life…while at the other end of the scale was an electric chair.
The Norvegian kneeling seat encourages good posture: an angle of about 130degrees between the upper body and upper leg produces a good bearing, like that of people on horseback…and they never slouch, do they.
And I have much empathy with the wedge shaped orthopaediccushions offered in mail order catalogues: They ‘tilt your pelvis slightly forward to align your spine in the correct posture’. I use one in my car and frequently used chairs and when I gave one to a doctor friend it relieved his back problem.
Seating in public transport deserves attention, often too low and also with the wrong tilt.
I can’t write about chair without mentioning my all time favourite, the bent wood chair of 1850 by Michael Thonetof which many millions were produced (which was followed in 1870 by the wonderful Wiener with arms).
Would it be possible to design a new, good looking, light, inexpensive ‘Jolting Chair’ with a seat that allows tilting fore and aft, also a bit of wriggling? Perhaps FX advertisers might offer a prize for such a design?
Chairs and seating have been around for thousands of years but there is probably still room for some fresh thinking.
Tom Karen April 2012
PS I studied aircraft engineering at Loughborough having reached Britain in the middle of WWII after escaping from Czechoslovakia following the German occupation in 1939. It was a good experience and I find the present University campus hugely impressive, especially the newly opened Design building that must be envied by any university anywhere.
