Water and a seat.

Still looking for an ideal lounge chair. Didn't net that Bertoia bird chair, although I did pick up some Bertoia wire dining chairs for patio use (cheers craigslist and Mike in Silver Spring). One that keeps popping up is the Siesta chair--pretty sure I've seen of these things in Millennium, and I know I've seen a few others in stores and certainly on craigslist. Although not as iconic as the Knoll-type pieces that fill up DWR showrooms, the Siesta chair seems to have a pretty solid niche in modern furniture history. Designed by Ingmar Relling, it won the 1964 Norwegian Furniture Council award and became a fixture, selling, apparently, over 1 million chairs overall. The license to manufacture this design has shifted over the years (currently they're made by Rybo of Norway), so they can be identified by several makers, notably Westnofa. Not sure if the quality varies among makers.



A spare design, the Siesta chair is comfortable, although it sits a little more upright than what I'm looking for. It is scaled nicely for a smaller space. It may suffer a little in the cachet department because it shares some looks with the dorm-standard Ikea Poang chair--itself arguably a knockoff of the Saarinen grasshopper. I think you could conceivably even use a Poang cushion on your Siesta. Like many vintage chairs, the selling price may vary a lot depending on the condition, especially of the leather-wrapped pads and canvas sling. On the positive side, unlike many vintage chairs, almost all of these seem to be made of genuine leather rather than vinyl that makes Plycraft loungers and some others less appealing in vintage, un-reupholstered condition. I've seen good condition chairs with included ottomans go for over $500, and apartmenttherapy.com recently featured a craigslist posting for a slightly more worn-in piece for only $160. The pads on that one appear to have a lot of stuffing left. If you're looking for a cost-effective vintage piece, not an investment, you could probably do worse.