Furniture designer Mr Tomás Alonso chooses his five favourite chairs.

Chair and chair alike? Not according to Mr Tomás Alonso, the London-based, Spanish-born furniture designer whose V&A 08 chair features as one of five intriguing designs profiled in this April’s Design Issue of The Journal. This week at Salone del Mobile in Milan, Mr Alonso joins a host of designers led by colourful Dutch duo Scholten & Baijings, to launch a range of new ceramic pieces with Japanese heritage brand Arita, as well as a new homeware project with Swarovski. But we at MR PORTER are still hung up on chairs, so, as we all turn our minds towards beautifully designed objects this week, we thought we’d ask Mr Alonso for his expert opinion on which chairs are his personal design classics. Take a pew, and read on. Then furiously tap all the below into 1stdibs.

Originally designed to furnish a student hall, the Cité features runners made of powder-coated sheet steel, with broad leather belts for armrests.

“One of my all-time favourites, this is an extremely clever but simple construction that feels as nice as it looks. I know, because I actually have one.”

A reinvention of the office swivel chair, with a flexible shell and rocking mechanism to ensure ergonomic efficacy.

“What I love about this chair is the contrast between its extremely hard aesthetic and its comfort. This is achieved, like the Cité, by brilliant construction and choice of materials; in this case, a polyurethane seat on a sprung steel structure.”

In the 1960s, Mr Vico Magistretti’s fascination with the possibilities of industrial production led to his groundbreaking work in plastic. This chair is made of compression-moulded fibreglass.

“This chair was designed at a time of great experimentation with single-mould construction. The Selene is one of the most successful examples, where the shape is directly related to the production process, and the aim is simply to produce an affordable and eminently stackable chair.”

The iconic “sling chair” with a chrome-plated or black enamel steel frame, and a seat and back finished in either ponyskin or cowhide.

“One of the best examples of the modernist tubular chair. I love how the rationality of the construction dovetails with the aim for comfort. Just look at the perfectly angled counterpoint of the seat and the backrest.”

Mr Poul Kjaerholm trained as a carpenter before studying at the Danish School of Arts & Crafts. The PK11 was originally designed as a companion piece to the PK51 worktable, designed in the same year.

“This is so clean and so precise, and shows such perfect balance of contrasting materials.”