The next time you zip about on your office chair, think of cowboys and the American mid-West.
Sounds far-fetched, but according to one expert, our comfortable office chairs, with their ergonomic design – adjustable seats, tilting backs and controls – began life on the porches of America.
There is a story that Charles Darwin was the first person to put castors on his chair so that he could scoot easily to his specimens. But design expert Jonathan Olivares maintains that the modern office chair was born out of the rocking chairs on porches where most Americans sat to settle business in the 19th century.
According to Olivares, the westward expansion of the American railroad in the mid-1800s saw a huge increase in the number of clerks and officials needed to manage the growing railway business. This demanded office seating that enabled clerks to work without leaving their desks, saving time and increasing productivity.
So the early designs for office chairs, patented in the 1850s in New England and New York, drew on the comfort and motion of the early rocking chairs.
Olivares is a product designer and has written a book about office chairs. He says he chose the subject because the chair is technically complex, but relates to the human body in a quite intimate way. This clip is a fascinating glimpse into the history of the humble office chair.
