I am the VERY proud owner of a ’59 Navy chair found in a pile of rubble on the grounds of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital here in Washington, DC. It is the loveliest thing I own. Period. Please keep fighting for your truly American product. Thank you.
Polly Brown, New York, Oct 11, 2012
FIRST LET’S MAKE THINGS THAT LAST. The Emeco 1006 Navy Chair was first commissioned in the 1940’s by the U.S. Navy for use on warships – the contract even specified that it had to be able to withstand torpedo blasts. Today our chairs are still made in the U.S.A., of 80% recycled aluminum, and are made by hand, by Emeco craftsmen using the original 77 step process. The world’s best architects and designers collaborate with us to design chairs that are built and guaranteed to last a lifetime. As we apply what we’ve practiced in the past, we are looking toward the future. We are on a mission to make a positive impact on the environment. Our goals are to use waste material in our products, use as little energy as possible in our manufacturing, generate a minimum of waste in the process, and build strong, durable, beautiful chairs that last through generations. We’ve been on the same mission since 1944 and we will continue to search for new ways to recover and utilize discarded materials and make products that last. 4
1006 Navy Barstools and 111 Navy Chairs in Charcoal Tramshed Restaurant, East London Design by Waugh Thistleton Photographed by Katherine Rose 6
1006 Navy Barstools and 111 Navy Chairs in Charcoal Tramshed Restaurant, East London Design by Waugh Thistleton Photographed by Katherine Rose 7
111 Navy Chairs in Charcoal and 1006 Navy Chairs. Google Headquarters, Covent Garden, London Design by Penson Photographed by David Barbour
UPCYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLES.
We get the most out of the material we use. For years, that material was aluminum. We developed a way to work with it to make products of extraordinary strength, durability and beauty. It took us a long time to find a new material that could inspire us the way that aluminum does, and even more time to develop the new material we now use for the 111 Navy Chair. It’s strong, durable, and it has a deep beauty that people love when they touch it. And it’s made from recycled plastic bottles. In fact, we called it the 111 Navy Chair because every chair we make keeps 111 plastic bottles out of the landfills.
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GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED, AMERICAN INNOVATION.
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111 Navy Chair Starbucks Espresso Journey Tokyo, Japan. Design by Nendo Photograph by Daici Ano
Broom Chair Goat, 13 Claypits Cottages, Scotney Castle, UK Photography by Anthony Oliver
MADE OF 90% INDUSTRIAL WASTE.
250 million tons of consumer waste and 7.6 billion tons of industrial waste are generated annually in America alone. Emeco, in collaboration with Philippe Starck, created a new material made from 75% industrial waste polypropylene and 15% reclaimed wood fiber. The result is the Broom chair, made using 90% pre-consumer industrial waste that will never see the landfill. 17
BROOM by PHILIPPE STARCK “Imagine,” says Philippe Starck, “there is a humble guy who takes a humble broom and starts to clean the workshop and with this dust of nothing, with this he makes new magic. That’s why we call it Broom.” 19
POSITIVE DE-GROWTH. Making progress without making waste.
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SOSO.
SOSO by JEAN NOUVEL French designer Jean Nouvel drew upon his “philosophy of nothingness” to create the simple, lightweight, Emeco “Soso Collection” of chairs and barstools. “I just kept the same Emeco DNA and evolved it into a new light and comfortable chair. Working with Emeco is like being in a field of wheat. The crop is grown and my job was to simply harvest,” said Nouvel. The collection is handmade of 80% recycled aluminum, by Emeco craftsmen using the same process Emeco has employed to fabricate the famous 1006 Navy Chair since 1944. 23
SoSo Chair Hotel Sofitel Vienna Stephansdom, Austria Design by Jean Nouvel Design Photo by Julian Lanoo
IT’S SIMPLE.
NOT EASY.
SEZZ by CHRISTOPHE PILLET Christophe Pillet and Emeco collaborated to create chairs for the Sezz Hotel in St. Tropez, where Pillet envisioned interiors with a sense of deep value – a home away from home. “The look is very subtle, but holds an unbelievable quality; you don’t see the welding, the recycled aluminum, the indestructibleness, they are all real but invisible values, the hidden territory of a luxury product,” said Pillet. 27
Sezz chair Sezz Hotel Saint-Tropez, France Design by Christophe Pillet Photography by Anthony Lanneretonne
SUSTAINABLY HARVESTED ASH WOOD.
LANCASTER by MICHAEL YOUNG “I feel passionate about working with natural materials that live forever,” said Michael Young. The sustainably harvested ash wood frame is crafted by Amish woodworkers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S.A..
Lancaster Barstools combining a Dark Grey Nano Coat seat and back with legs in Dark Ash Wood. The Union Bar, Vancouver, Canada. Design by Evoke International Design. Photographed by Janis Nicolay.
This is one of the first 1000 Hudson chairs installed in the Hudson Hotel in New York. We asked for it to be in the Emeco Museum because it shows that after 12 years of hard use, this chair, like all Hudson chairs, retains its beauty and strength.
BUILT FOR A LIFETIME – NOT A LIFESTYLE.
HUDSON BY PHILIPPE STARCK The Hudson Chair, designed for the Hudson Hotel in New York City, was Emeco and Philippe Starck’s first collaboration. Starck described the chair as “washing the details from the Navy Chair.” It takes an additional 8 hours to polish each Hudson Chair. Hudson is in MoMA’s permanent collection. 35
Hudson Polished Rocking Armchair Ramses Restaurant Madrid, Spain Design by Philippe Starck Photograph by Luis Hevia
ICON by STARCK Icon is a stacking chair cousin to the famous Starck-designed Hudson chair. It has been used in hotels, bars and restaurants worldwide, as well as training centers, meeting areas and schools. Starck describes Icon as “the chair I see when I close my eyes.� You can expect your Icon chair to last 150 years or longer. 38
Icon Polished Chairs & Hudson Polished Rockingchair Miele Kitchen Showroom, Germany
FIRST PRINCIPLES. LASTING VALUES.
At Emeco, we are committed to the principles on which our company and culture were built – quality, excellence, trust, honesty and lasting value. Our first product, the Navy Chair, was made to last a hundred and fifty years. It was light, smart, functional and strong – because that was the best we could do. Much of what is manufactured today is destined for the trash heap. Not so with Emeco – our products are handcrafted to last, and the principles that built our first chair still guide us today.
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KONG by PHILIPPE STARCK Philippe Starck designed the Kong chair and barstool with Emeco’s strength and durability standards in mind, for high-use environments like the Long Bar at London’s Sanderson Hotel. Kong requires the hand welding of 24 separate pieces of aluminum, and an additional 8 hours of hand polishing.
Kong Counter Stool Baccarat World Headquarters, Paris, France Design by Philippe Starck Photo by Yann Delacour
HERITAGE AGAINST RECYCLING.
HERITAGE by PHILIPPE STARCK Philippe Starck coined the saying “Heritage Against Recycling” and said this was “When you make something so well that it never has to be recycled.” Starck designed the Heritage collection as the stacking version of the 1006 Navy Chair. 46
EMECO STOOL by PHILIPPE STARCK Selected by The Museum of Modern Art for the “Mies Van der Rohe in Berlin” retrospective. 48
Emeco Stool Oriental Residence Bangkok, Thailand Design by Chanintr Living and Abacus Design Photo by Oriental Residence Bangkok
20-06 by NORMAN FOSTER Foster said, “I appreciate the anonymous character of the new chair – tough, lightweight – it meshes seamlessly with our vision for interior space.” 50
TOUGH, LIGHTWEIGHT, NEARLY INDESTRUCTIBLE.
We are designers, we are craftsmen, we are citizens of the world. At Emeco we have a higher purpose and we love a challenge. In fact, the more difficult the problem, the more inspired we are. One of the great challenges of our time is to do more with less, to get more delight and utility out of the material and energy we are using. That idea is at the core of the Emeco DNA. From the start, we made beautiful things that were built to last, as light as possible. Material efficiency. Enduring intelligence. Industrial strength. Beauty. Today, these ideas inform everything we do. 51
20-06 Chairs, Armchairs and Tables Winspeare Opera House, Dallas, US Design by Foster + Partners Photograph by Nigel Young
COLLABORATING WITH THE WORLD’S BEST.
SUPERLIGHT by FRANK GEHRY Frank Gehry had an idea for a chair that took advantage of aluminum’s flexibility – a chair that conformed to the body and moved like a rocking chair.
1951 by BMW DESIGNWORKS “As in good car-design, we added functional elements to create a dynamic look that appeals on an emotional level while projecting strength,” said Adrian van Hooydonk, of BMW. 56
1951 Barstools Huntington Park Stadium, Columbus Ohio, US Design by Suzanne Toney
Morgans Chair, Morgans Hotel, NYC Design by Agence Andrée Putman Photography by Eric Laignel
MORGANS by ANDRÉE PUTMAN Putman said, “I wanted to do for Emeco what Coco Chanel did with the “little black dress” – create a simple, sexy chair that never goes out of style.” Designed for the 25th anniversary renovation of the Morgans Hotel.
NINE-0 by ETTORE SOTTSASS Ettore Sottsass said, “A chair must be really important as an object, because my mother always told me to offer my chair to a lady.”
A GREAT IDEA LASTS FOREVER.
If it’s not special, why should we do it? At Emeco, we are very selective about the products we produce because we intend to make them for decades to come. We avoid hot design fads or the latest trends. Like true love, our product is forever. We need the best to inspire that commitment. Only a great idea will capture our imagination. Only true love is worthy of our full attention. Only the best intention will survive the process of becoming an Emeco product. That is one of the reasons we work with the best. They know what it means to have a great idea, and what it takes to make an idea last forever. 63
Nine-0 Barstools Brown University Science Center, Providence Design by Bergmeyer Associates, Inc. Photography by Warren Jagger
Denis Tangen
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Published by Emeco www.emeco.net 805 West Elm Avenue Hanover, Pennsylvania 17331, USA info@emeco.net Š 2013, Emeco. Editor: Gregg Buchbinder. Art Direction: Miki Less. Photography Š 2013, Mikio Sekita, Anthony Oliver. All rights reserved. Printed by Elanders, Sweden.