One of the oldest forms of furniture, a chair, is also a very important type of furniture. Its original characteristics are two adjoining pieces of hard, durable material, typically fixed at a ninety-degree or greater angle, with one fixed piece of a soft, flexible material above the other and fastened there by hinges or some other mechanism. The original chair was made for the convenience of the individual. Although it was originally designed as an object of practical utility, today’s chairs are very decorative and comfortable.
The chair first became popular in the middle ages in France, where it was used as a source of seating for serfs. The chair became very popular in the west European countries of the Renaissance, because during those times, furniture makers started to create chairs that were very comfortable and at the same time very fashionable. The chair became a symbol of status for the upper class, and chairs soon assumed the position of status symbols for royalty. In the late Middle Ages, the chair became the most favored piece of furniture for the lower classes. However, in the early to mid-17th century the chair started disappearing from most European countries, probably due to the development of cheaper and mass-produced furniture.
The invention of chairs was probably done after the discovery of how the wheel moves. People began to realize that if one person sits in front of the wheel and the other person spins the wheel, the two people can sit in front of each other without having to support one another directly. Soon after that, chair design evolved to allow more than two people to sit in a chair together. This is why you find that most common office chairs have two seats, not one.
A chair is usually characterized by two curved springs that support the front part of the chair and the back part of the chair. These two parts of the chair are called the leg rest and the back rest. In earlier times, the only way to make a chair was to create two separate pieces of wood with a framework to support them, called a frame. As the popularity of comfortable furniture increased, the development of frames gave way to the making of a single frame that supports both the backrest and the leg rest of the chair.
Club chairs are considered to be one of the earliest forms of comfortable furniture. The evolution of the club chair began when the population of elite groups, such as the royal family, needed more comfortable and practical furniture. Assembling one of these chairs required no tools except glue and wood. Over time, the frame of the club chair was changed to allow two seats. Since the early days of the chair, variations of the chair have appeared. Today, there are several types of upholstered chairs available, and most of these types can easily be found on the market.
In addition to the classic, wing back chairs, the upholstered chairs of today feature an arm rest or a swivel chair base. They may also contain a removable bottom or a glider. Some of the more common styles include the chaise longue, the recliner chair, the sectional chair, and the gambrel chair. It is important to remember that while a chair can provide many benefits, it is still a chair. No matter how comfortable it may seem, it still needs to be functional.
