Chair
It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in various colors and fabrics.
In keeping with this historical connotation of the "chair" as the symbol of authority, committees, boards of directors, and academic departments all have a 'chairman' or 'chair'.
[10] Until then, people sat on chests, benches, and stools, which were the ordinary seats of everyday life.
The number of chairs which have survived from an earlier date is exceedingly limited; most examples are of ecclesiastical, seigneurial or feudal origin.
[citation needed] Chairs were in existence since at least the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (c. 3100 BC).
Fashioned of ebony and ivory, or of carved and gilded wood, they were covered with costly materials, magnificent patterns and supported upon representations of the legs of beasts or the figures of captives.
Generally speaking, the higher ranked an individual was, the taller and more sumptuous was the chair he sat on and the greater the honor.
The most common theories are that the chair was an outgrowth of indigenous Chinese furniture, that it evolved from a camp stool imported from Central Asia, that it was introduced to China by Christian missionaries in the 7th century, and that the chair came to China from India as a form of Buddhist monastic furniture.
In modern China, unlike Korea or Japan, it is no longer common to sit at floor level.
[12] In Europe, it was owing in great measure to the Renaissance that the chair ceased to be a privilege of state and became a standard item of furniture for anyone who could afford to buy it.
By the 1830s, factory-manufactured “fancy chairs” like those by Sears, Roebuck, and Co. allowed families to purchase machined sets.
The design may be made of porous materials, or be drilled with holes for decoration; a low back or gaps can provide ventilation.
[22] Chair design considers intended usage, ergonomics (how comfortable it is for the occupant),[23] as well as non-ergonomic functional requirements such as size, stacking ability, folding ability, weight, durability, stain resistance, and artistic design.
[24] A seat that is higher results in dangling feet and increased pressure on the underside of the knees ("popliteal fold").
Gas springs are attached to the body of the chair in order to give height adjustment and more comfort to the user.
Typically, chairs intended for people completing work or dining can only recline very slightly (otherwise the occupant is too far away from the desk or table).
In Germany, an armchair was once called a Krankensessel, or sick-chair, because it was intended for people who were too ill to stand or sit without extra support.
However, padding does distribute the weight by increasing the area of contact between the chair and the body, and thus reducing the amount of pressure at any given point.
In lieu of padding, flexible materials, such as wicker, may be used instead with similar effects of distributing the weight.
[31] Governments will often issue standards for purchases by government agencies (e.g. Canada's Canadian General Standards Board CAN/CGSB 44.15M[32] on "Straight Stacking Chair, Steel" or CAN/CGSB 44.232-2002 on "Task Chairs for Office Work with Visual Display Terminal").
Such chairs are specified for tasks which require extended periods of sitting, such as for receptionists or supervisors of a control panel.
They are typically rented for formal events such as wedding receptions to increase the attractiveness of the chairs and decor.
In the second half of the 20th century, some people used custom clear plastic covers for expensive sofas and chairs to protect them.
An antimacassar is a cloth covering for a headrest to protect the fabric and enable easy washing.
It is an early work showing his and his wife Jeanne Claude’s iconic style of partially or wholly hiding objects within wrapped cloth and ropes.
Their work developed into large-scale public site-specific artworks and environmental art, which the pair are most well known for.
For Wrapped Chair, Christo plays with the identity of the object by concealing parts and revealing others.
In 2001, Steve Mann exhibited a chair sculpture at San Francisco Art Institute.
Later other museums and galleries were equipped with the "Pay to Sit" chair, with a global central seating license server located in Toronto.
In a performance piece at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Clint Eastwood addressed an empty chair, as if it represented President Barack Obama (meant to be construed as MIA or ineffectual).
