​Nelson’s “Coconut” armchair already alludes to the spontaneous lifestyle of the sixties, which was created by a popular everyday culture. Instead of looking for a shape functionally equivalent to the human body, Nelson made a memorable symbolic statement that introduced a new, deliberately easy-going type of sitting. He found a crucial impulse for his shapes in the expansive gestures of popular fifties art such as the abstractsurrealistic work of Joan Miró, or Alexander Calder. In the original version, the shell looked like a coconut and consisted of a piece of bent steel with foam rubber padding available in artificial leather, fabric, or leather upholstery. The frame was made of a piece of steel tube bent along the length of the shell for the two front legs, with a second piece for the back legs, whereby the legs which stuck out were stabilized additionally by welded crossbars. Thus, the frame seemed to stretch across a floating curved form and to be attached to the floor. Herman Miller later produced the shell using fiberglass-reinforced polyester and screwed aluminum tube legs singly onto the form; the crossbars were also screwed on.

The story of the original cone chair begins in a small forge on the island of Funen, where Verner Panton was creating a new chair for his father’s restaurant Kom Iger (Come Again). The jaw-dropping design used a semi-circular padded shell to create a very comfortable armchair, perfect for dining or relaxing. Panton’s friend Niels-Jorgen Kaiser once described it as a ‘ballet dancer standing on her toes.’ A year later, Panton extended the shell upwards and outwards with two wings that further enfold the sitter.

When it first launched, Panton’s Cone collection took the world by storm, drawing attention at exhibitions and in shop windows. The Heart Cone Chair became an instant classic, a visually striking and exceptionally comfortable piece of furniture. Produced by Vitra since 2004, it makes the ideal centrepiece to any modernist living space.

Designers Charles and Ray Eames sought to develop furniture that could be mass-produced and affordable, with the exception of the Eames Lounge Chair. 

The chair was inspired by the traditional English club chair. Though the Eames Lounge Chair later came to be considered an icon of modern design, when it was first made, Ray Eames remarked in a letter to Charles that the chair looked "comfortable and un-designy".

Charles's vision was for a chair with "the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt." The chair is composed of three curved plywood shells covered with veneer: the headrest, the backrest and the seat. The layers are glued together and shaped under heat and pressure. The shells and the seat cushions are essentially of the same shape, and composed of two curved forms interlocking to form a solid mass. The chair back and headrest are identical in proportion, as are the seat and the ottoman.

The Eames Chair has been cited as one of the most counterfeited and copied pieces of furniture. Immediately following its release, other furniture companies began to copy its design, some being direct copies and others merely being influenced by its design. The former Plycraft Company issued dozens of chairs that were direct copies or in its style. Later, Chinese and European companies began making direct copies. 

However, Herman Miller and Vitra remain the only two companies to produce these chairs with the Eames name attached. In 1962, the Eameses took out full-page newspaper advertisements warning consumers about counterfeits.

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It was the first chair the Eameses designed for the high-end market. The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman are part of the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.

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Originally designed by Charles and Ray Eames as furnishings for three lobbies in New York City's Rockefeller Center, the Stools make attractive companion pieces for many lounge chairs and sofas. Crafted from solid turned walnut, the Stools can also be used as occasional tables.

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The LTR (Low Table Rod Base) is a small, versatile occasional table designed by Charles and Ray Eames, who used it in their own home in a variety of different ways. A number of these tables are still found in the Eames House today. Standing individually or in groups, some are decorated with objects collected by the Eameses, while others simply serve as a practical side table next to an armchair or sofa.

The seminal impact of the Organic Chair on American design during the era of mid-century modernism is often underestimated today. This design represents the starting point for an idea that was successfully implemented in other pieces of furniture over the ensuing years. Its development led to personal encounters that shaped the further course of design history.

In 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) announced an ‘Industrial Design Competition for the 21 American Republics’, also known today as ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’. Participants were encouraged to enter original designs for furniture, lighting and textiles. The purpose of the competition was to discover talented designers and involve them in the task of creating a better environment for modern living. The winners were to be rewarded not only by the inclusion of their works in the subsequent 1941 exhibition ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’, for which curator Eliot Noyes sought out objects that demonstrated ‘an harmonious organization of the parts within the whole, according to structure, material, and purpose’. The museum also helped to arrange contracts with manufacturers, who would produce the winning designs and have them ready for the sponsoring stores to sell by the exhibition’s opening date.

At the time, Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen were in their early thirties and both design instructors at the renowned Cran­brook Academy of Art in Michigan, where Eero’s father, the architect Eliel Saarinen, served as director. The two friends decided to prepare eight entries – six of them chair designs – for the MoMA competition in the categories ‘A – Seating for a Living Room’ and ‘B – Other Furniture for a Living Room’. The typical chair from that era consisted of a seat and a backrest, sometimes padded with upholstery. Eames and Saarinen were captivated by the novel idea of creating a one-piece, three-dimensionally moulded plywood seat shell that followed the contours of the human body. However, no technology or machinery existed that could be used to produce such a shape out of plywood, forcing the two young designers to make prototypes of their chairs by hand. Helping to prepare the competition entries was a student by the name of Ray Kaiser, who had previously studied painting in New York City under Hans Hofmann – it was through this circumstance that Charles met his future wife.