Ames Einn is the name of this chair from Icelandic designer Erla Óskarsdóttir. My usual three-quarter view shot of the chair is de rigueur, but perhaps a better view is the one from behind, where the seat seems to tongue up behind you and lick your spine.  An early 90's graduate of design school in Copenhagen, the Reykjavik-born Óskarsdóttir has pieces in museums in the Netherlands and Iceland. I like the fluid smooth forms of her chairs - she specializes in seating design.  See a rather heavy-weight webpage here with some good pics. I can imagine I'll have to revisit her collection for future chairvatars.

Robo Chair from Luca Nichetto comes packed in a small box. The Venice-born designer was recently judged 'Young Designer of The Year' says this blog.  A great reason to visit that link is the view of the un-assembled parts of the chair.  You'll probably have to go to the Swedish showroom to pick one up.  No, wait. You could probably pop around to the designer's studio at Porto Marghera, Italy. 
Oh, save yourself the travel bill and just visit the designer's website. Some great eye-candy there. I quite like the simple chair designs there.

Miesrolo Chair from Uros Vitas is a great exploration of tension and compression. Uros studied at the University of Belgrade and says that sustainable design is a key motivator for him.  With a judicious selection of angles on the wooden staves, and a high-tensile-strength fabric band, the chair will either roll up in one direction, or form a shapely chair in the other.  You really need to see the pictures in various states.  The band along the 'outside' must be under a lot of stress in spots! If it let go, that would be quite a dramatic drop to the ground, but meanwhile, it's an awesome use of materials and a great illustration of basic mechanical principals.

Oliver Becker Chair. This smooth design is the work of a commercial designer who came from a design school north of Hamburg, Germany  He went on to spend almost two decades in Milan, Italy working on cosmetic packaging.  No doubt that experience of designing for visual impact and creating a desire in the observer to touch the product inspired this graceful, smooth style.  It's unclear if you can buy one of these or if it remains a concept, but it would be interesting to sit in, even if rather gingerly at first until you build confidence in the materials.   Becker is back in Berlin now working as an independent designer and 3D artist.

Simple, Stackable - Tom Vac Chair.  A 20th century furniture designer, Ron Aram did his original art training in Tel Aviv, and London and is apparently a prof of industrial and furniture design at the Royal College of Art in London. His Tom Vac chair is a versatile indoor/outdoor stackable chair. I love the simplicity of the shape. The ripple in the seat looks like it would

be form fitting and comfortable, though I'm a bit uncertain about the hole placement. I like to have a chair back support my lower back well, though it looks a bit like you might feel like you're falling through the hole on this one. But without finding one to sit in, I wouldn't know! In the absence of a tester - I will pronounce this an attractive minimalist design worthy of immortality in my Chairvatar lineup.

Nouveau Retro SpaceAge.  A change of pace for the chairvatar gallery. Rather than classics from mid-twentieth century design, let's mix it up a bit and feature a funky design from Alberto Benedetti. He's a young designer from Verona via Milan, graduated from ID school in 2002. His Supernova chair has a feel of the 50's space-age aesthetic.  It's one of those designs that I think you would sit on a bit gingerly at the start. The tapering vertical struts on the back are very thin, and I would double-check the finish of the supports in contact with the floor before I sat it on my hardwood, but I like the look, and definitely give it a try were I and my bum given the opportunity.

First One Piece Chair. The Panton Chair by Verner Panton from 1960 is iconic in both its form and materials. It was the first mass-produced, one-piece chair, and has a decidedly sculptural feel to it. I saw a recent design program from BBC which touched on this creation, and described the challenges with finding a manufacturer. Many wanted nothing to do with it. Various materials were tried, and ultimately those used held up reasonably well, though many surviving units show crazing and cracking, illustrating that the design pushes the limits of the materials available at the time.

This chair is also the grand-daddy of all our modern one-piece patio chairs, so next time you're sitting on a restaurant terrace in a one-piece plastic creation, raise a glass to Verner.