Furniture, decor, and signs of life are what make a house a home. In particular, design works, when paired with art and tasteful, understated furnishings, can transform a room into a personalized statement on art and taste.
Art lovers, from artists, to collectors, to designers, often select iconic design works to make an impact in their space. For those interested in delving into the world of design objects, here are 11 of the most iconic pieces. From the minimalism of Bauhaus pioneers, to the clean lines of mid-century modernism, to the playful designs of the Space Age movement and Memphis Group, you’ll find inspiration to get started.
Armchair and ottoman Eames, Hermann Miller edition circa 1970, ca. 1970
Charles and Ray Eames
Galerie Stanislas Kolli
Armchair and ottoman by Eames, Hermann Miller esition, ca. 1970
Charles and Ray Eames
Galerie Stanislas Kolli
American designers Charles and Ray Eames revolutionized what furniture could be with their innovative use of materials like fiberglass, plywood, and aluminum. The married couple were pioneers of mid-century modernism, blending functionality with style. One of their most iconic designs—the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, first made in 1956—was their first foray into high-end furniture, and it remains a symbol of sophistication today.
Inspired by the well-worn feel of a baseball mitt, the chair is made primarily of molded wood and leather upholstery with a swivel base. For decades, it has been recognized by art and design lovers for its luxurious comfort, sleek aesthetic, and ergonomic design. “It’s really comfortable to sit in and look at paintings,” said the artist Rindon Johnson, in an interview with Artsy, whose widely published artist portrait shows him sitting in a replica of the iconic chair. “And since I make paintings, it is, hilariously enough, a necessity in my studio. Being photographed in the chair was also a way of suggesting a kind of lineage with Charles and Ray Eames and thinking about what the purpose of art is and what it means to be sitting in a symbol.”
American architect and designer Florence Knoll—cofounder of the renowned manufacturer Knoll International—played a crucial role in shaping modern, corporate interiors, even if she didn’t see her own work that way. “People ask me if I am a furniture designer,” she once said. “I am not. I never really sat down and designed furniture. I designed the fill-in pieces that no one else was doing. I designed sofas because no one was designing sofas.”
Knoll’s Lounge Collection, designed in 1954, features a lounge chair and two different sofas with clean, geometric forms atop sleek, metal frames. These design works embody the Bauhaus tenets of rational design—values she inherited while studying under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen (father of Eero) in Illinois. They appear architectural in form, echoing the favored international style of the 1950s, and soon began appearing in the homes of prominent figures, including fashion designer Tom Ford’s Paris apartment. Originally, she intended her pieces to support the attention-grabbing works by the likes of Eero Saarinen and van der Rohe (even referring to her own work as the basic “meat and potatoes”). However, today, they have become timeless icons perfectly suited for both the home and office.
Coffee Table (IN-50), 1944
Isamu Noguchi
Noguchi Museum
Japanese American artist and designer Isamu Noguchi famously believed that “everything is sculpture.” In 1939, he conceived a coffee table to embody the idea that sculpture and furniture should merge seamlessly. The table was released by the producer Herman Miller (which still produces it today) in 1944; it featured a freeform, glass top resting on two interlocking, wooden supports. The organic shape of the supports was likely influenced by Noguchi’s work with biomorphic and surrealist forms, which can also be seen in his collaborations with artists like Constantin Brancusi.
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and designer known for his pioneering approach to form and structure. The Tulip Table, designed in 1957, was his response to the tradition of four-legged tables: “The undercarriage of chairs and tables in a typical interior makes an ugly, confusing, unrestful world. I wanted to clear up the slum of legs,” he said.
So, Saarinen embarked on designing a single-pedestal base that resembles the shape of paint being poured from a can into a tray. The pedestal is wide at the top and continuously thins before widening out again at the base—a key indicator of Saarinen’s original design over replicas. Made from cast aluminum with a lacquered finish and often paired with a Carrara marble or laminate top, the table had a futuristic aesthetic at the time. Today, it appears sculptural and timelessly elegant. (Bonus fun fact for fans of the Apple TV show Severance: Saarinen designed the New Jersey office building that houses Lumon Industries.)
A key figure of the Bauhaus movement, Hungarian-born architect and designer Marcel Breuer made a massive impact on the production of furniture by using tubular steel, taking inspiration from the lightweight yet sturdy structure of bicycle frames. He most iconically employed this material in what was originally produced as the Model B3 chair. Decades after its initial release, it was renamed the Wassily Chair (the name that has stuck) by an Italian manufacturer, who heard that fellow Bauhausian artist Wassily Kandinsky had admired the prototype and received a handmade version from Breuer.
Breuer, in his deconstructed take on the traditional club chair, distilled the silhouette into an outline. He paired bent, tubular steel with taut strips of fabric—originally Eisengarn, or “iron yarn,” and later leather—for the back, seat, and armrests. The minimal, modern piece remains incredibly comfortable, and it has held the attention of the design world ever since its creation. “What particularly fascinates me is how Breuer continued to evolve the design through several iterations, each refining the logic of the tubular frame and its connections,” German designer Konstantin Grcic told Artsy. “One of my favorites is the folding version, the D4.”
Egg Chair Restored in Zebra Hide and Loro Piana Leather, mid 20th century
Arne Jacobsen
Forsyth
In the early 1950s, Danish designer and architect Arne Jacobsen began using plaster and clay in an experimental design process. Later that decade, like a sculptor, he used these materials to figure out the primary shape of what would become his now-iconic Egg Chair. Designed in 1958, the Egg Chair was made for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, where Jacobsen wanted to create a seat that could provide guests with a sense of privacy and comfort in public spaces.
“I remember the first time we went to a summer cottage…to work on the Egg,” Sandor Perjesi, a model maker in Jacobsen’s studio, once said, according to Jacobsen’s website. “We crammed the plaster model into my car and spent an entire weekend adding and filing off material. Back and forth, like classic sculpting.” The finished product is made from upholstered molded foam and a fiberglass shell, with its curved, organic form enveloping the sitter and offering a cozy, intimate experience, even in a lively space.
Danish designer and architect Poul Henningsen dedicated his career to creating lighting that mimicked natural daylight. His PH Lamp, created in 1926 for the brand Louis Poulsen, was one of the first lamp designs to focus on controlling glare and shaping light to create a warm, inviting atmosphere—and two later models, the PH5 and PH Artichoke, remain hallmarks of Danish design today. First released in 1958, the PH5 lamp offered an improvement on the original’s three-shade system to carefully diffuse and direct light downward and outward. That same year, Henningsen designed the PH Artichoke Lamp for the Langelinie Pavilion, an upscale restaurant in Copenhagen. The elaborate form features 12 sets of six bent metal leaves, fanned outward in a shape resembling an artichoke to conceal the light source entirely while beautifully reflecting the light itself in all directions.
“Around the world, the PH Artichoke has inspired many imitators over the years but none remotely as handsome as the original. In its native Denmark, it has achieved heirloom status, proudly passed from one generation to the next,” TF Chan, author of Louis Poulsen: First House of Light (2024), told Artsy. On the other hand, “The more modest PH5 was, at one point, installed in one in five Danish homes—an astounding statistic with few parallels,” Chan continues. “In my mind, this is the quintessential midcentury lamp: functional, versatile, elegant, and made to stand the test of time. It is the ideal entry-level piece, and a perfect gateway to the world of Danish lighting.”
Eero Aarnio, Originals Ball Chair, 1963
Ball Chair, 1963
Eero Aarnio
Gallery Red
Renowned for his pioneering use of plastics and fiberglass in the creation of furniture, Finnish designer Eero Aarnio crafted pieces that combined functionality with artistic expression. The Originals Ball Chair, designed in 1963, is one of his most well-known pieces and has been prominently featured in films like Dazed and Confused (1993) and Men in Black (1997).
The chair, made from fiberglass and upholstered with boldly colored fabrics, embodies the futuristic, space-age design revolution of the 1960s, while its shape offers both comfort and a sense of privacy. Aarnio’s chair features a partially enclosed spherical space (indeed, the shape of a hollowed ball) that acts as a kind of personal retreat, bringing the sitter away from the noise of the room and into their own colorful cocoon.
Trained as architects, Italian brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni frequently collaborated on lighting designs—and in 1962, they eliminated the need to decide between an overhead light source or standing lamp. The sturdy Carrara marble base of the Arco Lamp stands on the floor, but it provides overhead lighting via an arched, stainless-steel arm that cantilevers outward. The lamp’s reflector hangs five feet above the floor, while the arched arm extends at the tallest point to 7.9 feet, allowing for movement both around and below it. The designers were acutely aware of fine-tuning the engineering, so much so that the corners of the base are beveled to prevent injury should one fall against it. There’s even a cylindrical hole in the marble to slide a long stick through so that two people can carry it.
The Arco Lamp offered an ideal solution to the changing design needs of the 1960s. As living spaces became more fluid and adaptable, the lamp challenged traditional notions about how lighting should divide domestic areas.
A forefather of the modernist architecture movement, Le Corbusier completed projects around the world, including the master plan for the city of Chandigarh, India. Today, 17 of his projects in seven countries are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Beyond urban development and architecture, he also painted and designed furniture with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and architect Charlotte Perriand. Among the first pieces the trio released was the Chaise Longue à Réglage Continu, more simply known as the LC4 Chaise Lounge (though Cassina, the brand that produces it today, stopped using this moniker in 2023). The lounger was made of a tubular steel frame, inspired by Breuer’s use of the material. This iconic cowhide reclined seat exemplified the concept of “human-limb objects,” which Le Corbusier outlined in his 1925 book The Decorative Art of Today. Furniture should be “extensions of our limbs and adapted to human functions,” he wrote. In her memoir, Perriand reflected on this further: “While our chair designs were directly related to the position of the human body…they were also determined by the requirements of architecture, setting, and prestige.”
Ettore Sottsass, Carlton Bookcase/Room Divider, 1981
Founder of the Memphis Group, Italian postmodern designer Ettore Sottsass embraced color, whimsicality, and asymmetry. One of his most well-known pieces made with the Memphis Group is the Carlton Bookcase/Room Divider, a totemic work incorporating angular shelves and drawers in vivid color. Open to interpretation, “it may be read variously as a robot greeting the user with open arms, a many-armed Hindu goddess, or even a triumphant man atop a constructed chaos of his own making,” as noted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Despite its statement-making appearance, the piece was crafted from MDF and cheap plastic laminates but designed to be sold to a luxury market—a subversion of high status and low-end materials not often seen at the time.
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