Chair: Rethinking Body Culture And Design"Engaged in fascinating and useful multidisciplinary research, Cranz is an avatar for body-friendly design. . . . Read [The Chair] and cheer."--Elizabeth Zimmer, Village Voice Perhaps no other object of our daily environment has had the enduring cultural significance of the ever-present chair, unconsciously yet forcefully shaping the physical and social dimensions of our lives. With over ninety illustrations, this book traces the history of the chair as we know it from its crudest beginnings up through the modern office variety. Drawing on anecdotes, literary references, and famous designs, Galen Cranz documents our ongoing love affair with the chair and how its evolution has been governed not by a quest for comfort or practicality, but by the designation of status.Relating much of the modern era's rampant back pain to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle spent in traditional seating, Cranz goes beyond traditional ergonomic theory to formulate new design principles that challenge the way we think and live. A farsighted and innovative approach to our most intimate habitat, this book offers guidelines that will assist readers in choosing a chair-and designing a lifestyle-that truly suits our bodies. Praise for The Chair: "[A] concise, multidisciplinary gem."—Publishers Weekly "Cranz is no sedentary historian. The Chair is a call to action."—Jonathan Levi, Los Angeles Times "Galen Cranz has written a provocative book. Pull up a comfortable chair-if you can find one-and read it."—Witold Rybczynski |
Contents
List of Illustrations | 9 |
How Chairs Evolved | 25 |
An Ergonomic Perspective | 94 |
A BodyMind Perspective | 119 |
The Chair Reformed | 153 |
Notes | 223 |
Bibliography | 253 |
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Common terms and phrases
adjustable Alexander teachers Alexander Technique American anatomical angle Architecture Art Nouveau artists back pain back support backrest balance chair Bernard Rudofsky body BODY-CONSCIOUS DESIGN BODY-MIND PERSPECTIVE century chair design CHAIR REFORMED chair sitting chairback CHAIRS EVOLVED Charles Eames comfort Corbusier Courtesy create cultural curve David Robinson decoration desk discs Eileen Gray ELEMENTS OF STYLE environment ergonomic researchers Ergonomics Figure floor forward Galen Cranz Giedion gonomic head Human Factors ideas Industrial INTERIOR DESIGN Journal kneeling chair knees Le Corbusier legs look lounge chair lower back lumbar support Mandal Marcel Breuer movement muscles neck NOTES PAGES Office Chair pelvis perching person Peter Opsvik Photo physical planar position problems recliner rest right-angle seated rockers Siegfried Giedion sit bones sitter Sitting Posture slump social somatic disciplines space spine squat standing status stools surfaces thighs upright WHAT'S WRONG women York