Uncomfortable, but expensive

There might be more comfortable seating than a sofa produced in the style of an aircraft wing - but when the Australian designer Marc Newson first unveiled his streamlined recliner in 1985, at an exhibition in Sydney, the design world loved it. Newson then developed a small series. The organically shaped Lockheed Lounge, named after the American aircraft manufacturer, consisted of glassfibre-reinforced plastic covered with thin, riveted sheets of aluminium. In 1998, the aeronautical furniture made headlines again when an example was sold by the Phillips de Pury auction house for £1.1 million, breaking all previous records. Among the listings of a London design sale by Phillips on 28 April 2015, a Lockheed Lounge is once again due to come under the hammer. The auction house expects the unusual sofa to fetch between £1.5 and £2.5 million.