Morgans by Andrée Putman for Emeco

Rachael Sykes | 8 February 2009 7 comments

French designer Andrée Putman has designed a chair called Morgans for aluminium chair manufacturers Emeco.

The chair takes inspiration from Emeco’s 1006 Navy chair and Robert Mallet-Stevens' 1928 classic chair design, and is exclusive to the Morgans Hotel. It was launched last month at Maison & Objet in Paris.

Morgans is made from 80% recycled aluminium and is available in gloss white and matte black. It weighs 7 pounds but is tested to carry over 1000 pounds.

Here's some more information from Emeco:

Andrée Putman fuses the DNA of Mallet-Steven with Emeco to create an exclusive chair for Morgans Hotel

1984: the dusk of Disco and the dawn of Madonna, and Andrée Putman created the first Morgans Hotel, amongst the hookers of Manhattan’s lower Madison Avenue. Conceived as a minimalist sanctuary, Morgans introduced New York to Putman’s modern European sensuality and simplicity. The new design also introduced New York to a simple, honest chair designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1928. The three steel bands that created the back of the chair would become a modernist icon, as Morgans would become the template for boutique hotels.

2008: 24 years later, Putman once again is entrusted to re-imagine Morgans and contribute an exclusive chair for the project. This time she combined the DNA of the Mallet-Stevens chair with Emeco’s 1006 Navy® chair to create a merger of both and at the same time, something wholly new. Putman described the new chair as “the soul mate” of the Mallet-Stevens chair that originally made Morgans its home.

Gregg Buchbinder, Emeco’s chairman remembers the first project meeting, “Andrée arrived in the 6 inch stilettos - she is the most stylish woman I have ever known. She told me she wanted to do with the Emeco chair what her friend Coco Channel did with the "little black dress" – create a simple, smart, sexy chair that never goes out of style.”

Named for the project, Morgans is an all-aluminum side chair, tested to carry over 1000 pounds, yet weighing only 7 pounds itself. Like all Emeco chairs, Morgans is made using a proprietary 77-Step process of 80% recycled aluminum and made at the historic Emeco factory in Hanover Pennsylvania. Morgans is available in brushed/ anodized and hand polished finishes as well as gloss white and matte black powder coat.

Mme. Putman specified 300 of the new chairs in the high gloss white chairs for the Morgans guest rooms, installed just before New York Fashion Week 2008. Mr. Buchbinder said, “The Morgans project gave us another opportunity to regenerate our 1006 Navy® chair- this time with the Doyenne of Design.”

Andrée Putman

With a career spanning more than 4 decades, Andrée Putman was designated “Above taste” by the German publication Suddeutsche Zeitung. In the 1980s, she rediscovered several major designers- Eileen Gray, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Mariano Fortuny- and launched the company Ecart International to manufacture and market these modern classics. At the same time, Mme. Putman invented the “Boutique Hotel” for Ian Schrager with Morgans in New York and then the Wasserturm in Cologne and Pershing Hall in Paris.

Eclectic projects have ranged from the Fine Arts Museum of Rouen to the CAPC in Bordeaux, from the movie sets for Peter Greenaway to the Concorde for Air France. Recent work in product design include an important silverware and jewellery collection with Christofle, a champagne cooler for Veuve Clicquot and an ultimate evolution of the legendary Steamer Bag from Louis Vuitton.

As an interior designer, Mme. Putman recently unveiled the Blue Spa at Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich, the Guerlain flagship store on the Champs-Elysées and stores for Anne Fontaine in Tokyo, Paris and New York as well as private residences in Dublin, Miami, Paris, Rome, Shanghai,Tel Aviv and Tangiers. Most recently, she designed a 31 floor apartment skyscraper in Hong Kong, conveniently named The Putman. She has described her most successful projects as, “the perfect balance between discipline and revolt.”

Emeco

Emeco was founded in 1944 to make all-aluminum chairs for the US Navy. Gregg Buchbinder purchased the company in 1998 and began a friendship and association with the renowned French architect, Philippe Starck, creating a series of products that united Emeco's historic manufacturing capabilities with Mr. Starck's classic designs for a new century. In 2000, Mr. Starck's Hudson chair for Emeco won the GOOD DESIGN Award and was inducted into the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 2004, Emeco collaborated with the American architect Frank Gehry on Superlight, a chair that utilizes aluminum's ability to be both strong and flexible. Mr. Gehry's chair won another GOOD DESIGN award in 2004 and was included in collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Pinakothek der Modern in Munich. In 2007 Emeco’s collaboration with Norman Foster “20-06” debuted at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile and won another GOOD DESIGN award, as well as a 2007 Spark Design Award. This past year, Emeco launched the Nine-O collection by Ettore Sottsass – the last design by Mr. Sottsass who died in 2007 at the age of 90.

From a workforce of 15 craftsmen in 1998, Emeco has quadrupled its size and recently instated a second manufacturing shift for the first time in 25 years. Emeco has made over 1,000,000 1006 Navy® chairs since 1944 and now sells its all-aluminum furniture in 50 countries.