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Now I sit me down : from klismos to plastic chair : a natural history / Witold Rybczynski.

by Rybczynski, Witold, 1943-

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Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

Chairs -- History.

Sitting customs -- History.

9780374223212 (hc.)

242 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A Tool for Sitting -- If You Sit on It, Can It Still Be Art? -- Sitting Up -- A Chair on the Side -- A Golden Age -- Sack-backs and Rockers -- The Henry Ford of Chairs -- By Design -- Great Dane -- Fold and Knockdown, Swing and Roll -- Human Engineering -- Our Time.

Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere? Architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. The story of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. The author reveals the history of chairs to be a social history - of different ways of sitting, of changing manners and attitudes, and of varying tastes. The history of chairs is the history of who we are. We learn how the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to sitting in a chair, and how the iconic chair of Middle America - the Barcalounger - traces its roots back to the Bauhaus. Rybczynski weaves a rich tapestry that draws on art and design history, personal experience, and historical accounts. And he pairs these stories with his own delightful hand-drawn illustrations: colonial rockers and English cabrioles, languorous chaise longues, and no-nonsense ergonomic task chairs - they're all here.

"In the hands of one of our best writers on architectures and design, a history of chairs becomes a revealing history of design and leisure, and ultimately of how we see ourselves"--

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