From a series written for ABC Radio National’s Blueprint for Living. this piece first aired on 11th October 2024. You can listen to it here.

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The comfort of the sitting room is a fiddly thing. For most, it’s the room to relax in. In the late 18^th century, the idea of homes having difference spaces for different activities became more prevalent. Along with a proper sitting room (usually called a drawing room or parlour) why not have a morning room or a music room? The tradition of ladies of a certain class having boudoirs and gentlemen their studies and libraries gained momentum. And all these rooms needed chairs. It was at this time that cabinet makers such as Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite produced catalogues of their designs so that you could choose whether you wanted a chair in the Chinese style or more Classical. The French popularised the upholstered chair at Versailles but its carved and gilded frame was very much part of the design. The Earl of Chesterfield’s sofa appeared in the mid 1700s, with its rolled back and arms completely upholstered in leather but this was more to perch on and not intended for a sitting room. It was only when fashion allowed people to relax more, without having to worry about where to put their bustle or metal-hooped skirts and where the lack of a corset meant a woman could adopt a more relaxed posture that the comfortable chair and sofa started being actually comfortable. And that means the twentieth century.

Coil springs and straps had become the norm for upholstery, tightly covered with layers of materials like horsehair or cotton before being encased in fabric or leather. And then the emerging modernist movement threw a spanner in the works. They didn’t want furniture with fringes, tassels and claw-shaped feet. Everything needed to be reconsidered and reduced to its essentials. This was seen in chair designs in the 1920s, often by women like Charlotte Perriand, Eileen Gray and Lilly Reich, who pared the chair back to the bone. Gray’s Transat chair, for instance, has one piece of padded leather slung within a metal frame like the canvas on a transatlantic deck chair. The trend for innovation continued. Occasionally new materials inspired new ideas. Like the Sacco bean bag of 1968 which was, essentially, a leather sack filled with polystyrene beads, or the Living Tower by Verner Panton which is a two-metre-high upholstered structure that provides four levels on which to sit or recline. The most iconic chairs remain as indicators of good taste. But are they comfortable? Many of the most arresting-looking designs are more like academic exercises, or artworks. Even modernist architect Philip Johnson acknowledged this when talking about his own Barcelona chairs, a design classic of the 1920s, noticing how only those who admired them thought them comfortable, as they were clearly not. Appearance trumps comfort.

The physical comfort of a chair is complex. It is not merely about cushioning or the lack of it, it’s also about proportion – the height and depth of the seat, the position of arms, the angle of the back. Too deep and a chair becomes impractical for someone who doesn’t want to curl their legs under them. Too low and it’s difficult to get in to and out of. It’s also worth remembering that the way we sit in the West is a learned behaviour.  Other cultures have different traditions, cross legged or propped up on cushions. So comfort in the sitting room is a particular thing. We may find it in the squishy chairs offered in department stores or in a design we simply admire for its aesthetic. The comfort we demand is individual. And no designer can ever tell you otherwise.