Witold Rybczynski. (2016). Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Witold Rybczynski. 2016. Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Witold Rybczynski, Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

Witold Rybczynski. Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

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Now I Sit Me Down

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Now I Sit Me Down From Klismos to Plastic Chair A Natural History

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From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History

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   • fileAs: Rybczynski, Witold
   • bioText: Witold Rybczynski has written about architecture for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Slate. Among his award-winning books are Home, The Most Beautiful House in the World, and A Clearing in the Distance, which won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia, where he is the emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. How Architecture Works is his eighteenth book.
   • name: Witold Rybczynski

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Now I Sit Me Down

fullDescription

Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere?
In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished 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. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He 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.
The famous Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner once remarked, "A chair is only finished when someone sits in it." As Rybczynski tells it, the way we choose to sit and what we choose to sit on speak volumes about our values, our tastes, and the things we hold dear.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Henry Petroski, The Wall Street Journal
   • content:

     "This is a book to savor in a favorite chair. Maybe you'll even find the one you're sitting in reflected in its pages: Now I Sit Me Down is charmingly illustrated with postage-stamp-size images of many of the chairs discussed--all drawn with obvious care by the author."

2. • premium: False
   • source: Wendy Smith, The Boston Globe
   • content: "Rybczynski adds another delightful volume to an already impressive shelf of books notable for formidable learning worn lightly and an infectious fascination with the way we craft the built environment . . . His prose has the engagingly conversational tone of an accomplished lecturer. You needn't be a student of architecture or design to enjoy Now I Sit Me Down, but you will certainly come away knowing a lot more about the practices and principles that shaped chairs throughout history."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Mark Medley, The Globe and Mail
   • content: The book is a slim, insightful introduction to the piece of furniture that shapes not only the way we sit, but the way we live, too."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Amanda Kolsen Hurley, Architect Magazine
   • content: "Whether describing the Egyptian stool or its surprising descendant, the Hollywood director's chair, Rybczynski elegantly sums up the social trends and technological innovations that have conspired to change the way we sit . . . There is a tactile quality to the writing."
5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from April 18, 2016
     The humble chair conceals a surprising amount of world history, sociology, and art in its deceptively simple design, according to design and architecture critic Rybczynski (Mysteries of the Mall). This detailed and comprehensive history of the chair begins by asking why certain cultures sit in chairs at all. Looking at seats, from a stool used in China in the second century C.E. to Charles and Ray Eames’s now-famous 1950 plastic shell chair, Rybczynski studies the base materials and innumerable innovative techniques that designers, furniture makers, and architects have applied to the chairs that people so often take for granted. He discusses dozens of different varieties of chairs, including the curved-leg Greek klismos, the classic Chippendale wing chair, the BarcaLounger, and the world’s most ubiquitous chair: the white plastic monobloc (one-piece) patteo chair, which is cheap and remarkably versatile and adapts to almost any environment or culture. Rybczynski’s relentless curiosity is easily transferred to the reader as he astutely zeroes in on the details of what makes a chair design special or significant. This latest contribution from Rybczynski serves as further evidence that he is one of the best writers on design working today.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 1, 2016
     The acclaimed popularizer and purveyor of all things architectural scrutinizes a "tool for sitting." A man of boundless curiosity, Rybczynski (Emeritus, Architecture/Univ. of Pennsylvania; Mysteries of the Mall: And Other Essays, 2015, etc.) turns his roving eye to something found in every home: the common yet paradoxical chair, which "endures, even as it never ceases to change." But this isn't a mere design history; it's also a "chronicle of human behavior." The author is fascinated with chairs because they "address both physiology and fashion." They try to balance artistry, status, gravity, construction, and comfort. As he notes, chairs "are inanimate objects, but they speak to us." Rybczynski is particularly taken by the ancient Greek klismos chair, "considered by many to be the most graceful chair ever made." It was a beautifully proportioned chair for everyday use, a "sitting tool distilled to its essence....It's perfect." Accompanying the description is one of the author's delicate, hand-drawn illustrations, which appear throughout the book. His succinct discussion of why the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to chairs is marvelous. The "quintessential" American chair, the rocker, probably appeared in the early 1700s. By the 1820s, it was a "national fad." The "Henry Ford of chairs" is the "landmark figure" Michael Thonet. Not only did he invent a new technique for making chairs in the 19th century, he also created a way to mass-produce them. The Adirondack chair emerged in 1903, while the fold-up aluminum chair popped up in 1947 at the same time as the "stately" BarcaLounger. In the 1940s and '50s, the Eames brothers' shell chairs were the rage. Now, "the most common chair on the planet" is the "furniture equivalent of rubber flip-flops." It's the plastic, monobloc chair, which has literally littered our planet. Rybczynski is totally engaging in this smoothly flowing, sharp, witty narrative--another winner from a top-notch writer on design.

     COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from July 1, 2016
     A common, quotidian object, the chair becomes anything but everyday in Rybczynski's discerning history. Both furniture and a vessel of personal and period tastes, it has a traceable lineage from ancient times to the present, and its many forms, evolved or designed, represent varied solutions to a rather unsolvable problem, as an industrial architect puts it. Namely, providing comfort in the sitting position, a subtle ergonomic challenge considering the range of people's physiology, the variety of their sitting postures, and their movement while sitting. Some forms that have become classics, such as the rocker, succeed by furnishing the chair's essential service as well as asserting aesthetically pleasing visual and tactile values. Populating his text with drawings and descriptions of chairs that meet these criteria, Rybczynski (Mysteries of the Mall and Other Essays, 2015) covers the materials and structure of their construction, phasing the latter theme from individual craftsmanship (declaring its apex to have been eighteenth-century French chair making) to industrial-scale manufacturing. In addition to the material aspect of chairs, Rybczynski highlights the attraction of the chair to modernist designers whose eye-catching creations, alas, rarely deliver comfort. A worthy addition to Rybczynski's well-regarded oeuvre, this cultured examination should be read in one's favorite reading chair, be it a Windsor or today's ubiquitous molded plastic seat.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

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Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere?
In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished 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. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He 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...

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Now I Sit Me Down From Klismos to Plastic Chair A Natural History

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From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History

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