From each of the furniture needs, the chair might be of the most importance. While the majority of other forms (apart from the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair can be looked upon here in the general sense, from stool to throne to complex types for example the bench and sofa, which can be considered 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 intriguing as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not merely a physical support and an aesthetic object; it historically is a signifier of social rank. At the past royal courts there were clear connotations between being led to a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but without arms, and having to utilise a stool. During the recent century, the director’s or manager’s chair has been seen as an indicator of superior dignity, as well as in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on a high-set platform.

In its furniture construction, the chair is used for a wealth of different makes. There are chairs structured to match man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). In past times there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, and four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can have chairs that can be folded up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.

Our contemporary lifestyle has demanded special chairs in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair kinds have changed to conform to differing human desires. Due to its close importance with man, the chair lives to its full significance only when in employ. Whereas it doesn’t make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there are things inside or not, a chair is really seen and fairly evaluated by a person utilising it, for chair and sitter need each other. Thus the different areas of the chair were given labels likened to the limbs of a human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the first function of your chair is to support the body, its value is valued generally for how suitably it does measure up to this practical job. Within the structure of a chair, the chair maker is restricted by certain static legislation and principal measurements. Inside these regulations, however, the chair maker has great freedom.

The history of the chair was dates of several thousand years. There is evidence of societies that created significant chair forms, as expressive of the premier object in the spheres of skill and creativity. Within these such peoples, particular mention 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 construct of masterful design, were known from findings made in tombs. One of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair would have four legs crafted not unlike those of an animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this a solid triangular structure was made. There seems to be no particular difference between the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical people. The simple variation lied in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the evidence of more expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all likelihood was created as an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool that stool persevered til much later periods of time. But the stool then was designed as the purpose of a ceremonial seat, its technical job as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from today be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, formed in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are in the shape of folding stools but can’t be folded because the seats are created of wood. The simplistic construction of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that spin on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric set between them, was seen again but some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most well known of this form is the folding stool, from ashwood, seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is known not from any ancient fossil still in form but as found in a trove of pictorial material. The archetype is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground outside Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of them are seen. These unique legs were likely to be crafted in bent wood and were probably needed to bear a large amount of pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore extremely strong and were plainly signified.

The Romans embued the Greek designs; some casts of seated Romans show examples of a thicker and which appear to be a slightly less delicately crafted klismos. Both styles, light or heavy, were brought back during the Classicist time. The klismos influence can be evidenced in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some types of marked originality of Denmark and Sweden during 1800.

China
The progression of the chair in China isn’t able to be charted as well as chairs in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken serial of drawings and artworks has been preserved, detailing the inside and exteriors of Chinese homes and their furniture. Another preservation from the 16th century are a collection of chairs crafted of wood or lacquered wood, that display an intriguing likeness to pictures of ancient chairs.

Same as in Egypt, there existed two particular chair designs in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair can be designed both with and without arms although always having its square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to firm the back. In one type, it has been found, the stiles were marginally curved by the arms in order to suit the form of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of its chairback). Together, all three parts were mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the idea of the Chinese back splat had an inspiration for English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that only just to a restricted limit stabilise corner joints (and then are loose into the bargain) represent a signature particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which closes upon the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or have rounded edges—referable maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and occasionally had a plaited seat. These chairs required the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for if too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a way of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs probably were reserved only for older people in the family, for they were given great esteem.

The Chinese folding stool is understood to have taken to China from the West. It does not vary very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is elegantly affixed to the two legs of the stool by use of a curved member, which is often provided with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the resultant effect of both furniture styles is stylized. The construction and decoration issues are combined in a way that is both naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an upshot of the way that the individual items do not appear to have been adjoined by use of either glue or screws, but are mortised onto one another and held in position in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also had its signature on the chair. Artworks show a style of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between the layers, stitched to bring up a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a related board in the back could be folded after loosening some tiny iron hooks. Therefore the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, at the same time, had the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is evidenced in engravings of the inside of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this type of chair may also be found in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not held that the design actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in impressive quantities, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its elegant proportions and fine 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 to say, as progressed in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and has been imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The chair owes the popularity to a combination of leisure and delicacy. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are little upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are strongly constructed on craftsmanlike methods in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof employ wood of relatively thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and finer examples would be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative carvings. The wood may 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 in some cases used in place of upholstery.

English chairs in the 18th century were more differentiated in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the royal circles in Paris and Versailles through 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 commonly known 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 versions 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.

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