{{Short description|19th-century American office chair}} [[File:Centripetal Spring Armchair, 1851 exhibition catalogue.png|thumb|upright|The armchair as depicted in the 1851 Great Exhibition catalogue]] The '''Centripetal Spring Chair''' or '''Armchair''' was a 19th-century American office chair, and one of the first modern designs for office chairs.<ref name="Olivares-2011">{{Cite book |last=Olivares |first=Jonathan |title=A Taxonomy of Office Chairs |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-7148-6103-6 |pages=29}}</ref><ref name="Vitra">{{cite web |title=Centripetal Spring Armchair |url=https://collection.design-museum.de/#/en/object/44009?_k=5rp4s2 |accessdate=3 December 2025 |publisher=Vitra Design Museum}}</ref>
Designed in 1849 by the American inventor Thomas E. Warren (b. 1808), the chair was produced by the American Chair Company in Troy, New York.<ref name="Olivares-2011" /> Made of cast iron and varnished steel with wood and velvet upholstery, it measured 107 × 61 × 71 centimeters (42.1 x 24 x 28 in) with headrest and armrests, and had a seat height of 48 centimeters (18.9 in).<ref name=Vitra /> [[File:Wolfsonian-FIU Museum - IMG 8180.JPG|thumb|upright|A Centripetal Spring Chair (the variant without arms and headrest) in the collection of the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum<ref name="Olivares-2011" />]] The chair exhibited all features of today's office chairs except adjustable lumbar support:<ref name="Slate">{{cite news|last=Murphy|first=Heather|title=The Quest for the Perfect Office Chair|url=https://www.slate.com/articles/life/design/2012/05/ergonomic_office_chairs_a_visual_history_photos_.html|accessdate=30 May 2012|newspaper=Slate magazine|date=30 May 2012}} Referencing Olivares (2011).</ref> it allowed tilt movement in all directions and had a revolving seat, caster wheels for ease of movement, as well as a headrest and armrests in the armchair variant. The seat rested on four large flexible C-shaped steel springs which permitted tilting around a central fulcrum point just above the base, using the sitter's feet and the weight of the chair as a lever.<ref>{{cite book|last=Pynt|first=Jenny|title=A history of seating, 3000 BC to 2000 AD: function versus aesthetics|year=2010|publisher=Cambria Press|location=Amherst, N.Y.|isbn=9781604977189|page=166|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2KFPUOLQc2oC&pg=PA166|author2=Higgs, Joy}}</ref> The modernity of its design, which included an innovative use of cast iron for the frame, was visually downplayed by hiding the springs behind a dense passementerie (an elaborate trim) and by rendering the frame in the nostalgic, gilded Rococo Revival<ref>''Field Guide to American Antique Furniture: A Unique Visual System for Identifying ...'', By Joseph T. Butler, Kathleen Eagen Johnson, Ray Skibinski, Henry Holt and Company, L.L.C. Publishers, retrieved June, 2012</ref> style.<ref name="Brooklyn Museum">{{cite web|title=Collections: Decorative Arts: Centripital Spring Chair|url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/188120/Centripital_Spring_Chair|publisher=Brooklyn Museum|accessdate=30 May 2012}}</ref>
After it was first presented at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London,<ref>''A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860'', Exhibiting at the London World's Fair, Volume 2; By James Leander Bishop, Edwin Troxell Freedley, Edward Young; retrieved Google Books, June, 2012.</ref> the chair had little success outside the US: it was deemed immoral because it was too comfortable. The Victorian morality of the time valued rigid, unsupportive seats that allowed sitters to demonstrate refinement, willpower, and morality through an upright posture.<ref name="Slate" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pynt |first1=Jennifer |last2=Higgs |first2=Joy |date=2008-09-01 |title=Nineteenth-Century Patent Seating: Too Comfortable to be Moral? |url= |journal=Journal of Design History |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=277–277-288 |doi=10.1093/jdh/epn016 |issn=0952-4649}}</ref> Today, reflecting its place in the history of chair design, the chair is exhibited in design museums, including the Vitra Design Museum<ref name=Vitra /> and the Brooklyn Museum.<ref name="Brooklyn Museum" />
==References== {{reflist|2}}
==Bibliography== *{{cite book |last=Olivares |first=Jonathan |title=A Taxonomy of Office Chairs |year=2011 |publisher=Phaidon Press |location=London |isbn=978-0714861036}} *{{cite book|last=Shewchuk|first=Diane Mary|title=Thomas E. Warren, the American Chair Company and the centripetal spring chair|year=1993|oclc=80464431}}
==External links== * {{Commons-inline|Category:Centripetal Spring Chair|Centripetal Spring Chair}}
Category:1849 works Category:Chairs Category:Individual models of furniture Category:Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art