Sit Down: Seating for Kids - Themes

6 February - 5 September 2010

What makes the perfect seat? Comfort... Style... Ease of use? Sit Down: Seating for Kids is organised into the following themes; What is a seat? Who are seats for? (including Eating and pooping, Learning, On the move, Resting and Playing) and How are seats made?, charting the history of chairs, from 1680 to the present day.

We take sitting down and a degree of comfort for granted, but it has not always been so simple. Seats have existed for thousands of years, but sitting was often a privilege. A child might have to ask a parent or teacher for permission to be seated. This hierarchical relationship was also present in other groups, such as staff and employer, worshippers and priest, courtiers and monarch. Gradually the natural instinct to sit down has become more accepted and built into our environment.

Chairs once symbolised authority and privilege, and were for the rich and powerful. Most seats were multi-purpose benches and stools, and the idea that children might need their own seating was not considered.

What is a seat?

A seat is a place or thing to sit upon. But what form should it take? It may be part of a bicycle, a wheelchair, a swing, or even a potty, apart from the more obvious chairs and benches.

Sitting down is just the starting point. Industrial and technological advances have given designers many more different materials and techniques to work with, particularly since the beginning of the 19th century. As a result they have challenged the traditional idea of a seat, with designs going far beyond the basic wooden box on legs (although the original idea has never actually been replaced!)

Consumers have sometimes had a bewildering number of choices to make, even at the budget priced end of the market - potentially a different seat for every purpose. Mass production and consumerism led William Morris to write, as early as 1882:

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.
(Hopes and Fears for Art)

Who are seats for?

Child-sized furniture helps a child to function in the adult-sized world.

Inventories of the 16th to 18th centuries show that many households had just one or two chairs and a few stools or benches, which were used by all age groups. But a child’s chair was a rare and valued possession, passed down the generations.

The rise of industrial mass-production of furniture in the 19th century meant that far more children could have a seat of their own. Those seats were not necessarily just small-scale chairs or benches. Highchairs and commode chairs for younger children already existed, and other specific versions emerged. These included seats for weighing and exercise, praying, learning lessons and playing.

Childhood is an important stage of development. Seating underpins this - to help children to learn, move about, rest, play and adapt to the world about them. However their use of seating is often based on their own ideas, and whatever the intended function is, they often find more creative uses.

Eating and pooping

Highchairs and potties help a young child exist in a larger world where chairs are adapted specifically for their smaller bodies.

Highchairs were introduced as a way of containing a child safely - strapping them in so they were out of harm’s way. Their design enables the child to sit alongside older children and adults at the meal table.

Potty training is a significant stage in a child’s development. Before being big enough to use an adult toilet, potties are designed to allow children to use the toilet at a young age.

On the move

Seats can enable children to move around safely and comfortably.

From birth, children have to rely on being taken places. As they grow older they gradually gain more freedom and find ways of exploring their environment.

Different types of transport enable children to move from one place to another. Some use wheels either with the child needing assistance or by themselves. Sometimes booster seats are required
to adjust adult seats to accommodate a child safely.

Learning

Seating used by children in formal and informal learning has changed as new attitudes about how children learn have developed.

School became compulsory for 5-10 year olds in Britain in 1880. Classrooms were arranged in neat rows with desks and benches shared by pupils facing the front. This helped the teacher maintain discipline and control, but was also seen as a good learning environment.

In the 1900s the freedom of the child, social interaction and flexibility in teaching methods all gained importance. Classrooms changed to having individual chairs for pupils arranged in groups around tables. This is reflected further in the understanding that developmental progress at home is just as important as formal learning in schools.

Resting

Resting is an important part of a child’s physical and mental development. It allows children
to balance the more active times in their lives.

Seats for resting have a distinctive character, different to other seating. They are made to feel comfortable and secure. Resting can provide time out for children to curl up and read, play with toys, or relax and daydream.

Playing

Children learn and develop new skills through creative play.

Play helps develop social, balance and motor skills as well as imagination. The idea that furniture can contribute to play - that a seat can have built-in play value - steadily gained recognition in the latter half of the 1800s. Rocking toys and ride-on vehicles already existed but from here on designs were developed with more conscious thought towards education and play. More abstract creations such as the K block have been designed most recently.

Children’s natural instinct for play means that even the ordinary can be transformed into something extraordinary in the child’s imagination. A simple seat can become a sports car or a secret den.

How are seats made?

The seats in this section represent over three hundred years of chair design and craftsmanship for children, demonstrating not only traditional hand skills such as carving, inlay and embroidery but also more industrial techniques like moulding and welding, and the creating of experimental materials. Today some seats are even recycled from rubbish.

The earliest of these seats (1680) look back to a tradition where designer and maker were the same craft worker. Even when individual furniture designers became fashionable and well known, like Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779), they usually began by learning practical techniques. More recently Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) was a jeweller and sculptor as well as a designer and Verner Panton (1926-1998) trained as an architectural engineer.

A seat may follow the popular trends or fashionable styles of its day, but must also accommodate the varying sizes, shapes and requirements of the human body.

Supported by Ercol Furniture Ltd