Lounge Acts

FROM WHERE WE SIT. DESIGN SURE LOOKS LIKE DESTINY

When you bring a woman into your home, your design choices speak louder than what comes out of your mouth. Here's what you want them to say: "I care about how I live. I no longer have roommates. You may have sex with me without embarrass­ment." Unfortunately, most classic furniture from top designers is not wallet-friendly. But thanks to cheap manu­facturing and slight modifications to keep the copyright police at bay, inexpensive unoffi­cial reproductions of the classics abound. The more unkind among us may call them knock-offs. We think of them as loving homages we can actually afford. Here are five pieces from three sources that prove investing in your style doesn't have to cost a fortune.

Name: Ball Chair

Source: Paradigm Gallery

(pgmod.com)

Price: $1,000

Based on: Ball Chair by

Eero Aarnio, 1966 ($6,860)

Coming at the tail end of the midcentury modern movement and ushering in a new era of funky futurism, Finnish-born designer Eero Aarnio's pieces launched a thousand 1960s sci-fi flicks and became the back­drop for countless swinging parties. The Bali Chair—pictured on the opposite page with model Heather Rae Young—has made appearances in everything from The Pris­oner and the Who's Tommy to Men in Black and The Fifth Element, and it still manages to look futuristic.

Name: LC4 Chaise Lounge

Source: Modem

Collections

(moderncollections.com)

Price: $845

Based on: LC4 by Le

Corbusier, 1929 ($3,200)

One of modernism's preeminent thinkers on architecture, Le Cor-busier was also a philosopher, writer, painter, sculptor and all-around troublemaker. The LC4 had a massive impact on the furniture world; it was a catalyst for the revolution of midcentury modern design. Le Corbusier's other name for this bad boy was the Resting Machine—which is just plain awesome. Plus, it never hurts to have furniture in your house that's modeled after something in the permanent col­lection of the Museum of Mod­ern Art. Sitting pretty: the lovely Hiromi Oshima, our first Japa­nese Playmate (June 2004).

Name: Egg Chair

Classic

Source: Euro Moderno

(euromoderno.com)

Price: $680

Based on: The Egg by

Arne Jacobsen, 1958

($5,940)

You couldn't move in a furniture store in the 1960s without tripping over one of Arne Jacobsen's designs. Jacobsen was respon­sible for a vast collection of objects, from hotels and chairs to the flatware in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (including right- and left-handed spoons). In 1956 con­struction began on his grandest work, the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. Jacobsen created everything from the building itself to the fab­rics on the walls to the seating in the lobby. Which is where this pretty thing was used (the chair, not the girl, who by the way is Miss March 2009 Jennifer Pershing). The Egg Chair was meant to offer a modicum of privacy in a public space. We think it will enhance intimacy even in the privacy of your living room. Today the SAS is a Radisson and has been mostly de-Jacobsenized, with the exception of room 606—still done up in his style. Book ahead.

Name: Eames Style LaChaise

Source: Paradigm Gallery

(pgmod.com)

Price: $1,700

Based on: La Chaise by

Charles and Ray Eames,

1948 ($9,475)

Eight years before creating the iconic chair and ottoman that would become their most enduring work (see inset below), Charles (pictured) and Ray Eames designed this oddly compelling fiberglass-and-wood blob. Based

on a sculpture of a reclining nude, the piece took first place in a Museum of Mod­ern Art design competition but proved so diffi­cult to produce

its retail price would have been prohibitive. It was eventually put into production in 1990 after manufacturing techniques caught up with the Eameses' at-once modern and clas­sical vision. Lovely, eh? Our May 2006 cover girl Alison Waite looks pretty curvaceous too.

Name: Marshmallow Sofa

by Nelson

Source: Modern Collections

(moderncollections.com)

Price: $1,000

Based on: Marshmallow by George

Nelson, 1956 ($3,100)

To quote George Nelson, "Design is a response to social change." The way we see it, social change can also be a response to design. Which is to say you'll improve your social life when you put one of these in your living room. Seriously, try looking at this sofa without smiling. (Now try looking at what's on this sofa—Miss June 2004 Hiromi Oshima— without smiling.) As an architect and one of the founders of American modernism, Nelson introduced Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to North America through his magazine articles. He also said, "Design is not science, and it never will be." Amen to that.