Chairs rocking, swings swinging

It’s a rock ’n’ roll summer for the swing set, as it always seems to be when hot weather locks in. The latest styles in moving furniture include a rocking chair made of recycled plastic milk bottles, an extra-large hammock with a canopy and hardwood frame costing $20,000, and a rounded, loopy chair in lucite called Rolling Volume.

Unusual shapes, colors and materials are becoming the norm.

A customer looking for a different take on familiar furniture pieces also can find a double-sized padded fabric hammock called a headdemock (that’s Dutch for hammock) and, from the Herman Miller Collection, a classic Eames molded plastic armchair rocker known as the RAR (for rocking armchair rod) that comes in red, lime, white, blue or black.

Have no fear: The old-fashioned porch swing is still available both with and without a frame, as is the traditional rope hammock. A Windsor-style wood rocker can be had either mass-produced or crafted by hand. Swivel chairs have their own following, and these, too, show up in a great variety of fabrics and forms.

Frivolous though some of the styles may appear, their general appeal is universal. Whether a swinging, rocking or swivel motion, there is proven comfort in the repetitious rhythm of going back and forth, to and fro. Porch swings and hammock models even allow for a feeling of temporarily escaping gravity’s pull and give a sensation almost of flying.

“Like being a kid again,” says Jill Linville, communications director for Room & Board home furnishings stores, who says she owns an antique rocking chair with an upholstered seat.

Furniture that moves has a long history. At least one authority believes this reflects mankind’s predisposition to return to memories of childhood.

“The idea of a swinging, swaying motion as comforting may be instilled in people from the womb,” says Sarah Coffin, head of the product design and decorative arts department at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. “Even in the most humble households, you find a rocking cradle that is something nurturing to a baby. And quite frequently children’s chairs are this way, too.

“There are all kinds of claims about when rocking chairs were invented. It strikes me as a 19th-century development, though it probably existed in the 18th,” she says. “Rocking starts with the idea of comfort and cradles. Cradles were rocked a lot earlier.”

A child’s rocking horse has its own history, she notes. The Web site of Room & Board (www.roomandboard.com) advertises a simple model for $59.

The custom of relaxing outdoors most likely coincided with the porch becoming virtually an auxiliary room in a house. This was more frequent in America and, naturally, only in temperate climes and seasons, Ms. Coffin suggests.

“Porches were very much a feature of American domestic architecture in the 19th century, and perhaps pioneers on the prairie sat out on porches conversing with neighbors,” she says. “Showing this sort of informality is rather un-European.”

The Cooper-Hewitt collection includes the popular Adirondack rocker — sometimes found in airport corridors to comfort travelers between flights — but not a rocking Eames chair, she says. Another popular chair often copied is the so-called Thonet rocker, made of an innovative bent and laminated wood veneer, developed in the 1830s by a German furniture maker named Michael Thonet. He definitely set a trend. The process was adaptable to mass production of lightweight, inexpensive furniture.

The Thonet piece will be featured next year in a Cooper-Hewitt exhibit to be called “Rococo: The Continuing Curve,” described by Ms. Coffin as the examination of rococo as “a free-spirited organic and sensuous style that started in the 18th through the 19th century and up to the present day.” An entirely different but equally fluid style is represented by the so-called egg chair, included in a show opening next week that highlights the museum’s recent acquisitions in 20th- and 21st-century design. Made of beechwood and cane, the chair takes the shape of an egg when closed. It was created in Italy around 1905 by designer Antonio Volpe.

Contemporary rocking chairs available for sale include the ecologically correct “green” model made from plastic milk bottles, introduced several years ago by California-based Janus et Cie. It’s a versatile piece because it can be used indoors or outside and is available in both single and double-size versions. Priced at $782 for the standard model, it’s also one of the most expensive rockers of its kind on the market.

The same firm is responsible for the room-size hammock that is meant for large patios — and, at $20,000, large pocketbooks. For more information, call the company’s local representative at 301/682-4223.

A host of Web sites offer rocking chairs of every stripe, marketed as traditional, classic wicker, woven, Adirondack, Gatlinburg black spindle, Lakeland white-slat back and more. There seems to be almost as many names for them as there are makers. One of these, Gary Weeks & Co. Furniture Makers (www.garyweeks.com) even contains a drop-down site that is a “Dictionary of Handmade Rocking Chair Makers.”

Hammocks are only slightly less popular but, again, the variety can be bewildering to a consumer.

“They are a great Father’s Day or holiday gift,” says Penny Waugh, patio buyer for Net Shops of Omaha, Neb., whose Web site (www.netshops.com) offers porch swings and hammocks of nearly every size and type.

The Pawleys Island rope hammock, conceived by a riverboat captain in the late 1800s on a summer resort off South Carolina, is made with patented Duracord rope, which accounts for its relatively high price. Other models use a synthetic material of spun polyester more resistant to weather (because cotton has a tendency to mildew), according to Ms. Waugh.

The family-size headdemock has a more modern look and is a relative bargain at $399, including the metal frame. It comes in a choice of eight solid colors, padded with layers of fabric and a nonwoven mesh. It is sold through www.fatboyusa.com or locally through Mod Decor in Potomac.