This article was originally featured on MIT Press.
This article is adapted from Omar W. Nasim’s book “The Astronomer’s Chair: A Visual and Cultural History“.
When you close your eyes and think of a chair, what comes to mind? You might see your father’s favorite easy chair, the one he sank into to watch television and which still holds the strong scent of his pipe tobacco; the sofa you were on when you first conquered “Mario Bros.”; or that special couch that always remained covered with a sheet or plastic slipcover until guests arrived.
Yet others might see in their mind’s eye designer chairs like Le Corbusier’s chaise lounge, Charles and Ray Eames’s arm and side chairs, or the ubiquitous plastic monobloc chairs banned by the city of Basel in 2008—chairs that embody emblematic designs of the 20th century, not to mention fetishized commercial objects that continue to inspire or repulse. Still others might imagine Van Gogh’s familiar rustic wooden chairs or the Iron Throne at the center of the hit series “Game of Thrones.” Whatever the case, it is clear that the chair encapsulates a lot more than simply inert furniture.
The chair is, after all, one of those inconspicuous supports, much like the floor beneath your feet or the walls around you, that tends to fall away into the background so that you can get on with other things, like reading. But if we attend to chairs in a systematic way and take them seriously as objects of historical research, they open up a whole world of significance.
As indicators of stature, there are chairs in the history of science that have become iconic. These range from Voltaire’s reading chair equipped with candlestick holder and bookrest, to Benjamin Franklin’s library chair with built-in steps, to Charles Darwin’s armchair on wheels, still on display at his home office in Down House, Kent. Such relics are housed in museums visited by thousands every year, for whom…
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