Consider the chair

Are you sitting comfortably?

Chairs, for most people, are a means to an end. But for some, they can become an obsession. The more sensually inclined among us covet chairs more than perhaps any other object with which we come into regular contact, and designers are particularly guilty of attempting to bring ever more interpretations into existence.

As Bruno Munari explained, back in the sixties:

For years and years architects and designers all over the world have been designing thousands of chairs, upright chairs and armchairs, all different and all the fruit of infinite inventiveness. I have even designed two or three myself. But it seems that the problem has not yet been altogether solved, because architects and designers all over the world are still going on designing chairs, just as if all their efforts up till now had been wrong.

Munari emphasizes his point by scattering countless doodles of chair designs throughout his book, Design as Art.

What has changed?

Although we spend roughly a third of our life in the horizontal, for most a bed is a bed is a bed. A chair, however, extends. We snuggle up in comfortable chairs to read a book with a steaming mug of tea within reach. We crane over our laptops from café stools. We invite guests to sit in our chairs; they form the literal foundation of convivial evenings around the dining table. We eat in chairs, sleep in chairs, and (in the Western world, at least) relieve ourselves sitting down. Chairs can be markers of wealth and taste, and a successful date may end in the bed, but it likely starts in a pair of chairs. A good armchair brings the room together as well as any rug.

Chairs are a fixation in design because they are deceptively simple yet endlessly complex. We all possess a mental image of the default chair—the ‘ur-chair’ or ‘proto-chair’, if you will. The stool from which all others evolved. A child can grasp the chair-as-concept from a young age. A chair may sport a single leg, many legs, or none at all. But the standard, we can all agree, is a stable, square four. They are fundamentally utilitarian objects. After all, is a chair truly a chair if it doesn’t support the act of sitting?

It may seem obvious that a chair should support the human form, but it doesn’t take an ergonomics expert to see that human bodies come in all shapes and sizes. This fundamental task is challenging enough without considering the aesthetic dimension of chair design. Chairs exist in situations. They are always juxtaposed with other phenomena: other objects, the floor on which they stand, the walls against which they are framed, and the tables under which they are tucked. There are rules, whether we are consciously aware of them or not. We seek functional and aesthetic harmony, which is why the imitation Rietveld chair that squats in the corner of your hip friend’s lounge would be out of place in a dentist’s waiting room.

Through the lens of subjective experience, the makers of chairs must navigate the often conflicting values of aesthetics and utility. What is commonly considered beautiful is not always comfortable, and the ongoing attempt to marry these two ideas in the creation of a sort of ‘überstool’ continues to elude designers. Imperfect clones abound; the itch is never scratched. Leaps forward have been made—for example, the innovations in material science and manufacturing techniques that enabled Breuer’s B3 chair or the Eames’ experiments with plywood—but the chair to end all chairs remains elusive.

Why do designers keep reinventing an object that seemingly should have reached a definitive form by now?

Imperfect clones

Of course, this obsession is not limited to chairs. Designers continue to introduce new kettles, headphones, blenders, cars, coats, fidget spinners, board games, water bottles, panty liners, shaving foams, mobile phones, and—perhaps the most varied and imaginative of all—sex toys.

Capitalism demands an ever-expanding system of objects, constantly proliferating with more interpretations, variants, accessories, and features. Consumer society thrives on continual upgrading, replacing, enhancing, extending, and accumulating to satisfy desires conjured by conniving advertisers, influencers, and public relations teams.

Yet the chair occupies a special place in the shared creative imaginary, proving uniquely responsive to shifting cultural contexts. Tastes and needs evolve and loop back, and thus ever more chairs must be designed—each new attempt in a dialogue with its predecessors.

I will admit: I dream of living in a house filled with chairs. I pore over apartment listings, imagining how I would populate empty new rooms with Ekstrems, Togos, Bruno Reys, and Chesterfields. I justify these fantasies with my appreciation for the craft of industrial design, much like someone with an overstuffed wardrobe attributing their collection to a passion for the artistry of select fashion designers. But let’s be honest—my consumerism is no more virtuous than anyone else’s. If I were to peel back the layers of this desire, I’d uncover little more than crass fetishism.

And I am far from alone. Enthusiasts flock to design meccas like Hay House in Copenhagen or the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein to marvel at the boundless imagination and ingenuity embodied in the artefacts housed there. We crave what we cannot own, and to compensate, we snap photos and share them on Instagram. In doing so, we project our cultural capital and perform our roles as arbiters of taste.

Interpretation and potential

Objects are more than their physical manifestations; they are shaped by our relationships with them. The essence of a chair is not merely in its materials or form but in how we imagine using it, the memories we attach to it, and the cultural narratives we impose on it.

Indeed, an object amounts to very little without our interpretation of it. Connotation trumps denotation. Materials, shapes, and colours all carry associations and cultural meanings that influence how users perceive the object even before they use it. Comfort is in the eye of the beholder. Whilst good design aligns form and function, it must also effectively communicate that alignment to the user. Leather might suggest durability and luxury, but depending on the context, it can also evoke a sense of masculinity or nostalgia. The designer’s role, then, is not solely to create functional seating but to craft a visual and tactile language that conveys these broader cultural narratives.

Just as a football kicked in the air possesses potential energy, all objects around us are invested with a sort of latent potential—qualities we project onto them, realized only through use. There are invisible forces at play between the ball and the earth, objects and subjects. The chair is a symbol that each person imbues with their own personal signification. We create myths about how we will live with the object, define it, and in turn, be defined through it. It isn’t the newness of things we crave, but rather the novel experiences they promise to unlock. We anticipate satisfaction, and it’s with this most potent of spices that advertisers season their stories. We don’t worry ourselves with how an object will wear and age, break or require repair; those anxieties arise later, at the first sign of a scratch or stain.

The chair is a symbol that each person imbues with their own personal signification. We create myths about how we will live with the object, define it, and in turn, be defined through it.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I bought a second-hand Ekstrem chair after months of bargain hunting. I rented a car to pick it up, and we placed it proudly in our reading nook. I sent photos to my mum. We beamed when friends came over and commented on its peculiar form. It’s surprisingly comfortable, we assured them. Try it for yourself! Then, after only a few months, I noticed some of the stitching had come undone. I was devastated. Was it moths? Had our cat mistaken it for a scratching post?

No, it was simply old. Hundreds of hours of friction had gradually worn down the wool. My wife, who is handier with a needle and thread than I am, patched up the first hole. But more holes appeared. She patched those as well, and I found myself increasingly reluctant to sit in the chair for fear of damaging it further.

To be deprived of its principal utility—what life is this for a chair?

A chair is never truly finished, because a finished chair ceases to be a chair. The object continues to evolve as it is used, worn, and passed down, and so an objectively perfect chair remains forever a mirage. The ‘finished’ design is just the beginning of its story; beauty compounds in the imperfections, in the evolving relationship between users and the object over time. The scars of use confer a bond with the user, and it is only through this unique bond that perfection can be attained.

We will at some point reupholster the Ekstrem, but I have developed a sentimental resignation to my wife’s mottled upholstering and the proliferation of holes in the fabric. Once again, I’m content to while away the hours of a Sunday afternoon with a good book, cradled in its arms.

The best chair in the world

Perfect being out of grasp, let’s settle for good.

At the 2019 design week during Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Philippe Starck unveiled the world’s first production-ready chair designed by artificial intelligence. Using prototype software from Autodesk, Starck posed a simple question: How can we rest our bodies using the least amount of material?

In his own words, Starck explains: “Artificial intelligence doesn't have culture, memories, or influences and so can only respond with its ‘artificial’ intelligence.” And he’s right, to some extent. An algorithm cannot feel the finished product. It cannot amalgamate the tactile knowledge of sensory experience. Intelligence, perhaps—but not perception.

In an interview with nomad magazine, Starck explains his approach:

We had the idea of telling the program to take a different approach to the command: destroy a shape, instead of building one. After that, everything went very fast and AI delivered the chair we wanted. I think it’s the best chair in the world. Made with the minimum energy and materials. In fact, it’s now even available in 100 per cent recycled plastic.

Take that, ChatGPT.

Personally, I think the end product looks pretty cool. Its form is eerily organic, yet it somehow betrays an artificiality, for want of a better word. Would I own one? Possibly. Will it become a design classic? That’s impossible to say. But it is nonetheless provocative. If Starck considers this the be-all-and-end-all of chairs, a chair so Starck that Starck himself could not have imagined it—what are the ramifications for the rest of the design world? Will artificial intelligence eventually deliver us the ‘best’ of everything, rendering further exploration and iteration obsolete?

My wife hates the Eames Lounge Chair, and I’m inclined to agree. This is arguably one of the most iconic, and certainly one of the most counterfeited, chairs ever designed. For over half a century, it has been a go-to purchase for lawyers, advertisers, finance bros, and design aficionados who have reached—or aspire to—a certain level of affluence. It’s a chair that telegraphs wealth and taste.

And yet, I find it ugly as hell. Especially when upholstered in glossy black leather. Apologies if you own one.

Last month, my wife, curious, sat in an authentic Eames Lounge Chair for the first time. She admitted that, despite its appearance and needless bulkiness, setting aside all the cultural connotations it carries, and ignoring her personal prejudices, it was remarkably comfortable.

Would we ever consider getting one for our future chair-filled home?

Absolutely not.