I recently started a series called “What am I looking at?” that briefly highlights a design that we see all the time in restaurants, hotels, and magazines, but may not know anything about. Today I am keeping in the mid-century modern vein, highlighting a chair from visionary American furniture designer Milo Baughman. It was extremely difficult to choose one chair of his to focus on, but I went with the “Good Egg” swivel chair of 1967 because I just saw a version in West Elm. They won’t call it that, but that’s what it is.
A brief background of Milo Baughman: He was raised in California and is more famously associated with his 50-year relationship designing furniture for North Carolina-based Thayer Coggin, which still produces his designs.
Here’s the “Good Egg” chair:
Thayer Coggin’s image of their “Good Egg” swivel chair
When I look at this chair, I imagine how hard it was at the time for people to understand and embrace such an unusual design. It’s very similar in many ways to Finnish designer Eero Aarnio’s “Ball” chair and other “egg” shaped chairs, which did precede Baughman’s version. However, what’s interesting to me about Baughman’s chair is that it is cozy but fairly open to facilitate conversation, and it swivels. While other similar designs cocoon or hide a person seating within, Baughman’s was more for the extrovert than introvert. Aarnio’s version is hard, with a fiberglass shell, that further protects the person seated within. It’s idea for reading, for example. Baughman’s chair is a nest for conversation.
Eero Aarnio’s “Ball Chair”
And because I am so enamored of it, I have to add an image of Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen’s “Egg” chair, created in 1958 for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. I love how it recalls the traditional lines of a wingback chair but totally updates it and puts it on an exposed chrome swivel base.
Arne Jacobsen’s “Egg” chair in an updated leather version
Like the “Good Egg” chair, Arne Jacobsen’s chair looks welcoming and comfortable, facilitating conversation. Also like Baughman’s designs, Jacobsen’s have stood the test of time. They may not be everyone’s taste, but they are iconic.