The Lockheed Lounge by Marc Newson is the most expensive sofa in the world

Lockheed Lounge by Marc Newson is considered the world's most expensive contemporary design object. In 2009, the aircraft-wing-inspired couch was sold at auction for £1.1 million. Today, another example could yield more than twice that figure…

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.