Just take a look at the pictures - "there are women in chairs, gods in chairs, musicians - so it clearly was a tool used by many people," he says.īut democratic sitting didn't last. "The striking thing about the Greeks," Rybczynski explains, "is that the chairs become very democratic very quickly." "We would call it a kitchen chair," says Rybczynski. (You can see it right here.) It shows a harpist sitting on a simple, four-legged chair.
The oldest representation Rybczynski could find is a Greek sculpture from 3,000 B.C., which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The earliest records of chairs appear in Egyptian tomb paintings and ancient Greek art. Who knew your beach chair had such a backstory? "There are lots of occasions where you want to walk somewhere and then you want to sit," Rybczynski says. But when exactly did humans decide the ground wasn't good enough? The oldest kind of chair, Rybcynski believes, was probably a folding chair - think of the nomadic tribes in ancient China, for example. The wear and tear is kind of nice in an old chair."Ĭhairs are old - really old. "This is also whoever owned it before me. It reclines, it tilts, and it's well-worn. When Rybczynski sits down to write, it's in an old, wooden swivel chair he bought at a flea market 40-some years ago.
Take a close look at what you're sitting on, he says, and you'll learn about trends in architecture, design, culture and society. In the new book Now I Sit Me Down architect Witold Rybczynski traces the history of chairs. And when the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey sat on a swivel chair for the first time, she was in for a surprise.
Pee Wee Herman named his ' Chairy.' Archie Bunker's beloved wingback is now at The National Museum of American History. Please, have a seat it's time to talk about chairs.
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