Modern Furniture Designs

6. Eames Hang-It-All. Embodying the Eames's three design tenets in all their glory, the Hang-It-All is not only attractive and an eye-catcher, it is also extremely functional. The three tenets? A design should be aesthetically pleasing, functional, and fun. With its solid, multi-colored maples balls on a steel-wire frame, this design easily hits all three marks. See it.

5. Interface-Flor carpet tiles. Flor has made one-piece area rugs _and_ wall-to-wall carpeting completely obsolete. Not only do the tiles come in a wide array of styles, but the company takes them back when you're finished with them (for recycling). They install with great ease (even _I_ can do it). One can rearrange or move the tiles easily (they stick onto the floor). Possibly best of all, if a tile gets dirty, you can pull it up and run it under water in the sink to clean it! Several of their lines are made of recycled materials (and will be recycled once returned to the company), and at least one is made from biodegradable corn/pant fibers. Flor tiles work equally well as area rugs or as wall-to-wall installations. Check it out.

4. Noguchi coffee table. Reflecting both Japanese and modern-design aesthetics, Noguchi's coffee table displays an elegance and simplicity which are far above average. Made up of three "organic shapes", the design retains only those elements which are necessary. (Miles Davis once said that a piece is not finished until you've taken out everything that didn't need to be there.) A stunning work which one really must see and touch in order to sense its sublime impact. See it.

4. Bellini chair. This elegant, sleek chair (by Mario Bellini) is every bit as comfortable as it is handsome. I've tried out dozens of modern dining chairs and this one is far and away, heads above the rest, the most comfortable (Stua's Globus chair, mentioned below, is a very close second). As a testament to its classic status, this is the chair used in the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. The shape is perfect in its aesthetic impact, and in its great attention to the minute details of what makes a comfortable chair. It's also got a textured finish, which keeps a person from sliding down in it, as happens with most every other chair I've found (save the plastic Globus). There was a time in my life I avoided plastic like the plague. If you take these chairs into your life, see how beautiful they look in any surroundings, how easy they are to wield (they stack 6 high), and how perfectly comfortable they are, I believe you will come to see well-made plastic furniture as the only logical step in this day and age (as the greatest designers have known for 60 years or more). [The Arco-Bellini is an armchair by the same designer, equally comfortable, but more casual, coming in a wide array of bright colors...and it stacks _26_ high.] See the Bellini.

2. Eames plywood lounge chair. I hope you didn't think the name Eames would appear only once in this list. This chair is amazing. It's made of plywood (the Eames were the first to make really great designs from laminated and bent plywood) and it looks like a kid's chair, but they call it a "lounge" chair? (In fact, it looks exactly like the archetypical "kid's chair".) Trust me, when you get a chance to sit in one, you will be completely amazed. It is unquestionably one of the most comfortable chairs ever made (despite its simple looks, the chair mechanisms are quite advanced and complex). As with their other designs, Ray and Charles Eames succeeded here in making something attractive, functional, enjoyable to use, and fun. See it.

1. Stua's Zero table. One cannot get a sense of the simultaneously elegant and monolithic nature of this table without sitting at one. It's huge! 44" in diameter, it easily seats six people, with plenty of leg room. Yet it is sleek as can be. The sort of piece that you just want to touch all over. Another one of those designs that makes one wonder why the norm, 4-leg dining tables, is still the norm. Totally unassuming, it does not impress itself upon you until you are right up close, and then you think, "Wow! I didn't know this was sitting over here." Stua is a design company from the Basque region of Spain. Check out the Zero table. Stua's Globus chair and Malena chair are equally fantabulous.