Lumbar Support in the Archive Repositories of London

Here is my illustrated version of the lack of lumbar support in the chairs provided in the reading rooms of the main archives that I have visited.

For anyone who works at a desk all day, you know that your chair is important.  Basically, sitting in a chair all day is about the worst thing you can do for your back.  My back is really bad to begin with (insert long saga of debilitating back ailments) so I'm very aware of chair quality.  I don't even have a chair at my place.  I sit on a giant Swiss ball that I packed (deflated) from home.  In my old apartment in Chicago, I bought a decent office chair with some lumbar support, but more importantly, used a really tall utility table with my computer screen on a stand so that I never have to lean over while I'm working.

But when you don't have an office or regular workspace, you are just at the mercy of whatever chair it is that Fill-in-the-Blank institution bought in bulk.  And you can't exactly file a worker's comp claim with The British Library when you go cripple from bad seating.

THE BRITISH LIBRARY

Despite its modern architecture, the BL has opted for vintage charm in the seating department.
It's low, straight-backed wooden chairs are garnished with a largely decorative leather pad on the back
and seat areas....nothing so common as arms.  The main problem, though, is that the desks are too low for the chair.
If you want to actually be able to read the tiny scrawl of whatever it is you are looking at (helped along by very poor lighting), you must bend at the waist to get your face closer to the material.  This causes sacroiliac joint pain, butt numbness, and cervical spasms (of the neck, not the cervix).   

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

At least the Natural History Museum, built in the mid-19th century has a valid excuse to be terrible.  Basically the NHM chairs are the same as the BL chairs, except more austere and more...broken.  Both table and chair (both built probably pre-1870) are decidedly wobbly and make very loud noises that reverberate through the high vaulted ceilings whenever you deign to move.  Usually there is only one position that brings stability, and it is the one pictured above.  This causes spine misalignment, coccyx pain, and hip dysplasia.

 THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS AT KEW

Kew Gardens has these funky, post-modern, late-1970s colored chairs (orange, green, and burnt sienna) that feel like swiveling movie director's chairs.  There's no real support to them, it's basically like a butt-hammock on a thin metal frame.  The swiveling feature prevents muscular atrophy, but every time you get up to get another document, it's like getting up off a beach chair, forcing all your bulging spinal discs to shift position.

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AT KEW

After all these terrible chair experiences, I arrive at The National Archives in Kew, where I see these beautiful chairs that look like they are just made to support the lower back.  The chair back even looks like a model spine.  They have arms.  They are height adjustable.  They look terribly expensive.  Sit in them for 8 hours, though, and they are only marginally better than the preceding chairs.  Discernibly better, I'd say, but not the miracle that their sleek design seemed to promise.  No specific medical threats involved...just general malaise.