The lounge chair designed by American husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames in 1956 has come to symbolise the affluent 1950s. As soon as you looked at it, you pictured yourself relaxing with a drink in one hand and a copy of the New York Times in the other. The Eames wanted the chair to have "the warm receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt". But the chair also reflects the prevailing Cold-War mentality of 1950s America, which the Eames' designs and advertisements actively and naively fed into. The plywood and black leather lounge chair initially owed its fame in part to the Eames' friendship with film-director Billy Wilder, but it has since become a star in its own right and a permanent feature of the design landscape - suitable for both chic office and private sitting-room, and an ideal psychoanalyst's chair.