Rating: 
Summary: fabulous gift
Review: Over the weekend I read the book cover to cover--reclining, standing, perching, squatting, even sitting (on the way to the dunes, in a properly reconstructed car seat). What an experience, and what a fabulous gift! I can't decide which was more gratifying: the seamless matching of extraordinary form with compelling content, or the subtly powerful way in which the restrained and tasteful prose mounts an actual sociocultural revolution.
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Summary: ¿The Chair¿ contains an excellent survey of sitting problems
Review: Professor Cranz's book illustrates in a very fine way the history, anatomy, ergonomics and problems of chair seating. I also give some good suggestions on how to reduce the strain of the back, neck and arms. With her background an as Alexander teacher she understands the importance of sitting upright and in balance (like on horseback) to prevent damaging the back. This is in strong contrast to the majority of the world's experts. They still believe, that a close permanent contact with a "good lumbar support" is the best way to prevent back problems. At the same time they claim as much variation in posture as possible, but this is highly contradictory. Any one should be convinced if they study a school class sitting hunched over their desks. Several studies have demonstrated that about 60 % of the older school children complain of back problems. With the increasing use of computers this number will increase in future. As professor Cranz emphazises, our civilization is more or less based on chairs as most education, production, transportation and office work takes place in a seated position. Nevertheless the anatomy of the seated man is still unknown to most chair designers. Education of furniture designers, training of good sitting posture and standardization of furniture is also still mainly based on wishful thinking, moral and discipline from the days of Queen Victoria and Chancellor Bismarck. Unfortunately most scientific studies of the seated man deals with tiny details without considering the person as a whole. Professor Cranz's book gives a much more allround description of the problems connected with the extensive use of chairs than any of the books I have ever read. Besides it is easily read, very interesting and has plenty of good illustrations. With the increasing number of back and neck pain sufferers this book is highly needed and it will hopefully inspire to a more serious debate about sitting problems.
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Summary: Praise for Galen Cranz's provocative and inspiring book
Review: Publishers Weekly: "[A] multidisciplinary gem. . . . Cranz's clear book -- half survey, half polemic -- may successively delight, instruct and alarm professors in their endowed chairs, designers at their slanted tables, drivers in drivers' seats, parents with carseats and, of course, the arm chair intellectual." Elizabeth Zimmer, Village Voice: "You spot an adorable, buoyantly erect person at a party. You head to the kitchen for a drink. When you return you discover your quarry lying under the piano. Do you (a) cringe and look for other company, (b) alert the host, or (c) get down there with him? Sociologist Galen Cranz, who teaches architecture students at Berkeley, would encourage option c. Her treatise on chair design, pocked with illustrations of seating arrangements, argues for "seating reform" -- and for a return to squatting, sitting on the floor, crawling, and stretching out in places like offices and airports. Also an Alexander teacher, she describes the ways sitting in most chairs deforms the spine, and debunks the notion of a perfect seat, preferring instead to encourage mobility. She . . . analyzes the status concerns that shape the way we furnish our living rooms, boardrooms, and schools. . . . I took Cranz's book on a trip and found myself assessing the seating options in ferries, buses, planes, trains (the best), and other people's houses; freed from bondage to the machines on my desk, I celebrated, as she does, chances to recline and stretch. . . . Engaged in fascinating and useful multidisciplinary research, Cranz is an avatar for body-friendly design, proposing office environments where a recumbent woman would be recognized, and respected, as still at work. Read it and cheer."
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating challenge to anyone who sits
Review: There are certain subjects that do not seem to lend themselves to serious or interesting scrutiny. I would have said the history of the chair, and its place in society, would have been one of those subjects until reading Professor (and Alexander Teacher) Galen Cranz's new book, The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design. Professor Cranz takes a look at the history of chairs, their place establishing hierarchical relationships among people, and the various design attempts artists and architects have made at creating chairs. Cranz makes clear in her book that in chair design often the "emphasis is on materials-plastic, metal, and wood in varied applications-rather than on the effect of the chair and its structure upon the body and its structure." The chair becomes an object, an everyday sculpture, that oftentimes disregards the fact that it is being used in particular ways for particular purposes, with substantial impact on the individual who sits in the chair. In recent history, an increasing focus has been made on the way chairs affect our use. For anyone interested in the way we use ourselves, the portion of the book that examines the ergonomic attempts to create a more body-friendly chair reads like a dark comedy, as various attempts are made to address one part of the body, without adequately considering another part. Cranz takes us through this process and helps us see the misconceptions that many designers have built into their chairs. One of the first, and biggest, problems facing designers is figuring out how to determine what would make a chair that facilitated ease and comfort. Comfort is a particularly vexing concept, for reasons obvious to any Alexander teacher, since the old familiar habitual patterns are going to tend to feel comfortable, at least in the short term. Cranz suggests that the various attempts at measuring comfort, including the use of "Electromyogram tests... stresses along the spine, using needles in the discs or pressure-sensitive pills" have been unsuccessful in measuring a meaningful change in comfort level for the person sitting. Another refreshing aspect of the book is the radical notion put forward by a new breed of ergonomic designers that chair design specifically, and workplace design in general, should not be restricted by "traditional cultural expectations. They want to change traditional workplace design. For them, the beginning and end of design should be the body." Cranz gives a short history of the Alexander Technique in her book, but only references the Technique when it is relevant to the general design questions at hand. The Technique is presented as a unique approach that can help inform chair design, without proselytizing about the specific benefits of the Technique itself. The Technique has simply become, in effect, part of the relevant literature on design issues. In one section of the book, Cranz talks about how one's conception of gravity will change one's design ideas: "If a designer thinks gravity is the enemy, he/she will design chairs like bags to hold our collapsed structures. But if the designer believes that gravity is useful to us, the sitting surface can function more like a platform so that the structure of forces and counterforces helps us spring into the body's natural volume-as opposed to being stacked from the bottom up like a wall or collapsed into a heap." She goes on to say that "The most wide-ranging philosophical insight from the Alexander Technique and the somatic perspective generally is that human beings are designed for movement, and that more important than any single given posture is the quality of our movement, our overall coordination." Cranz questions the traditional notions of lumbar support, of chair backs that do not continue high enough to support the shoulders and head, and of the various other design decisions that have interfered with a more natural use of the body. In the last sections of the book, Cranz lays out her recommendations for a better chair, ("a forward-tilt seat, firm-textured surface, a flat uncontoured seat, butt space between seat and backrest,") as well as examining some of the more unconventional approaches that have been taken to try to address the complex challenges of more intelligent and humane chair design. Cranz has successfully turned a topic that could easily have been relegated to the back shelves of university libraries into a fascinating account of what chairs have been, done and stood for over the centuries, and what they can become in the future.
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Summary: Great, but could've touched more on breathing and meditation
Review: This book is a really impressive interdisciplinary work, and was useful in helping me buy the "perfect" chair. (Actually one of the author's most interesting points is that a perfect posture does not exist, since movement is inherent in human bodies.) It would have been nice if the production was a little better with more sophisticated photos and colour, but the content is all there. Except that I feel the author should have made much more reference to the mind-body disciplines and meditation. For example, a key concept in meditation is that one should sit with one's back straight because the energy moves up the spine better that way. I was hoping to read something about how that relates to work and sitting in front of a workstation, as well as read about how sitting affects breathing. But other than that, a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Great, but could've touched more on breathing and meditation
Review: This book is a really impressive interdisciplinary work, and was useful in helping me buy the "perfect" chair. (Actually one of the author's most interesting points is that a perfect posture does not exist, since movement is inherent in human bodies.) It would have been nice if the production was a little better with more sophisticated photos and colour, but the content is all there. Except that I feel the author should have made much more reference to the mind-body disciplines and meditation. For example, a key concept in meditation is that one should sit with one's back straight because the energy moves up the spine better that way. I was hoping to read something about how that relates to work and sitting in front of a workstation, as well as read about how sitting affects breathing. But other than that, a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Reader from Institute of Design
Review: This book is very good in term of research in design. Especially, the author critiques the past designed chair. Hopefully, we should have more research on chair design.
Rating:
Summary: Reader from Institute of Design
Review: This highly original book inspired me to look further into the design of my own work and home spaces. I immediately wanted to try out those Norwegian "perching" work desks (for students) on a classroom, just to get student feedback on them. Alas, that may take years! BTW, where can one order such furniture?
Rating:
Summary: This book has inspired me to further research.
Review: This highly original book inspired me to look further into the design of my own work and home spaces. I immediately wanted to try out those Norwegian "perching" work desks (for students) on a classroom, just to get student feedback on them. Alas, that may take years! BTW, where can one order such furniture?
Rating:
Summary: Consumer, business, designers, engineers...
Review: We read the book with great pleasure and interest, we recommend it to everybody - who may occasionally make use of the chair! Cranz had courage to address the very serious situation, especially with growing tendency to a more and more static work places (i.e. computers, but not only). The cost to the society, for wrong (and totally misunderstood by public) approach to the sitting - is colossal ("In 1978 an estimated $ 14 billion were spent for the treatment of Low Back Pain [LBL] in the United States"). This book, in our view, is an excellent guide for general public, which deserve an independent opinion about seating, from that of manufacturers' bottom line biased opinion. In our opinion, there is not enough of real engineering involved in chair design. The chair design is affected too much by "designers", who are not exactly the engineers. Unfortunately in industries, the terms designers and engineers are too often very blurred, difficult to distinguish. Who has bigger influence on the outcome in product design could very often be surprising. Add to this the influence of top executives, board of directors, marketing people, and the cocktail of decision making is ready. Very seldom, the above mentioned people have anything to do with engineering. As an example, we would like to cite from the book, the uselessness of so popular "backrest pads", when the natural lumbar curve of the spine is already straighten by the simple fact that we are sitting (in vast majority of cases) with 90° torso to thighs positions. Pads can do nothing to address the situation. See also in Cranz book, the reference to Dr. A.C.Mandal about proper mechanics of sitting. We may disagree with her about the passenger car seats. In our view the car seats and the driver's position should be modified to better suit the dynamic conditions and frontal area of the car (which should be diminished). We wish somebody had the guts to write the similar book about cars, as Cranz wrote about chairs.
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