Step onto a film set—or someone’s front porch—and you’re likely to see one: that workaday collapsible, wood-framed perch we all call the director’s chair, with its signature scissor-kick legs and removable canvas seat and back.
This no-frills folding form hearkens back to ancient Egyptian stools and the classic Roman curule, reserved for dignitaries, but its modern origin story starts with what came to be known as Gold Medal Camp Furniture, a Wisconsin-based company that introduced the design in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair. “It was part of a larger inventory that had to do with camping, related to the back-to-nature movement of the 19th century,” explains Emily Orr, associate curator at then Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. “Steadily, it moved into domestic settings—backyards, patios, even parlors.”
