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Swivel UK’s Top Ten Lounge Chairs.

The best lounge chairs you have ever seen. Probably.

10. Le Corbusier Petit Armchair

Le Petit Confort Chair and the entire Petit Confort line are scaled down versions of their “Grand” brothers. All were designed as a modernist response to the traditional club chair by Le Corbusier group. The goal was to provide the well-padded comfort of the club chair without violating industrial and minimalist principals of design at the time.

As fresh and as good looking as they were when designed in 1983, the Le Corbusier Petit Armchair features a chrome tubular steel frame with top quality black leather deep cushions. The chair is extremely comfortable and will fit well into any modern setting.

9. Corona Chair

The early chair designs of Danish designer Poul Volther were based on a series of cushions separated by open spaces in order to economize on materials difficult to obtain after the Second World War. A result of this, the Corona chair was first presented in 1964. The original consisted of a wooden skeleton on which a series of oval cushions provided the seat and the rising back; the intention was for the body to relax in various positions.

Widely acclaimed when first launched in 1964, the Chair has since been shown in a wide variety of fashion features, film and music videos. The four upholstered shells give maximum support for the body with overt associations to both spinal column and ribs of the human anatomy.




8. LCW Chair

The Eames designed molded plywood LCW chair was a boldly innovative breakthrough when it was introduced in 1946. It was originally designed using technology that the Eames developed before and during The Second World War. Before American involvement in the war, Charles Eames and friend, the architect Eero Saarinen, entered a furniture group into the Museum of Modern Art‘s “Organic Furniture Competition”, which they went on to win.

Comfortable, practical, and lightweight, it looks as contemporary now as it did then – a modest chair that has come to represent the best in modern design.




7. PK22 Lounge Chair

This PK22 chair is one of the PK series of chairs by Poul Kjaerholm. Kjaerholm considered steel to be a natural material with the same artistic finesse as wood, and with the design of this chair exploited the natural strength and flexibility of steel.

The discrete and elegant lounge chair PK22 epitomizes the work of Poul Kjærholm and his search for the ideal form and industrial dimension, which was always present in his work. It was an immediate commercial and critical success. In 1957, the Chair was awarded the Grand Prix at the Milan Triennale, the world’s premier design fair, which catapulted Kjærholm’s career.





6. Le Corbusier Grande Armchair

The resulting chair, a simple, tubular steel structure fitted with almost decadently comfortable leather-covered cushions, was a plump, upholstered answer to the lean art deco aesthetic that dominated the era. Amazingly, the chair, which debuted at the 1929 Salon d’Automne art exhibition in Paris, is as relevant, fresh and modern today as it was when it was first seen in the 1920s.

The Grande Armchair features a chrome tubular steel frame with top quality black leather deep cushions. Extremely comfortable, it fit well into any modern setting.

5. Swan Chair

Arne Jacobsen is considered one of the most influential furniture designers of the last century. Originally designed in 1958, the Swan Chair was originally developed for the lobby and reception areas at the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.
Featuring a molded fibreglass frame, swivel-base and a fire-retardant foam. It’s available in Hopsack or full Italian leather.










4. The Diamond Chair

Originally a protégée of designer Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia designed the Diamond Chair in 1952. In his art, Bertoia experimented with open forms and metal work.
The Diamond Chair was an extension of that work. “If you look at the chairs, they are mainly made of air, like sculpture,” said Bertoia. “space passes through them.” The originals were made entirely by hand. This wonderful piece features a frame built out of chrome steel rods bent into a wire mesh, making it exceptionally strong.







3. The Egg Chair

The world-renowned and much-imitated Egg chair was originally designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen. Although it was originally intended for the lobby and reception areas of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Copenhagen, the Chair has gone on to become a world best-seller and an icon of 21^st Century design.

Its original design sprang from a new technique, which Jacobsen was the first to use; a strong foam inner shell underneath the upholstery. Its cocoon shape allows a moment of calm in busy, public spaces.

The Egg Chair features a molded fibreglass frame and fire-retardant foam padding. It can also available in various colours and materials for a personalized touch.



2. Barcelona Chair

The Barcelona Chair by Mies Van Der Rohe was designed for the 1929 world exposition in Barcelona. Using leather straps to suspend leather covered cushions from a chrome plated steel frame, this chair has become a modern icon.

Van Der Rohe wanted to make an important artistic statement. He showed how negative space could be used to transform a functional item into sculpture. Indeed, he once quoted, “The chair is a very difficult object. Everyone who has ever tried to make one knows that. There are endless possibilities and many problems – the chair has to be light, it has to be strong, it has to be comfortable. It is almost easier to build a sky scraper than a chair.”

1. Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman.

Highly influential and endlessly imitated, Charles Eames revolutionized 20th Century furniture design. The famous Charles Eames ‘Relax’ Lounge Chair and Ottoman was designed in 1956, for the fiftieth birthday of close friend Billy Wilder.

Fashioned from a bent rosewood frame with an Aluminium base, it features luxurious cushions covered in the highest quality leather. This beautiful chair is exceptionally comfortable, and is recognized as one of Charles Eames’ most important designs.


Words by victoria@swiveluk.com. All images are owned by Swivel UK. © 2012