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The Making of the Iconic Emeco 1006 "Navy Chair:" 77 Production Steps in 3 Minutes

By Rain Noe - August 4, 2020

People in submarines eventually need to sit down, and in 1944 aluminum company ALCOA collaborated with the U.S. Navy on the purpose-built 1006 Chair, also known as the Navy Chair or Submarine Chair. The design brief had at least one interesting bulletpoint: The chair had to be "torpedo-proof."

The resultant super-strong chair is still in production today, manufactured by aluminum chair company Emeco. For a fascinating look at how it's made, check out their 77-step process, starting from aluminum sheets and ending up with the finished product:

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The Making of the Iconic Emeco 1006 "Navy Chair:" 77 Production Steps in 3 Minutes

max

10 years ago

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.,..and good enough to be sold off as SCRAP metal by Uncle Sam - http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=3935939&categoryId=e7917
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Dennis Zanone

10 years ago

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I believe that Ettore Sottsass admired the simple design of this Emeco chair and made a version based on the existing design.
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Daniel erwin

10 years ago

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As mentioned in the credits, it deserves mention that this first film was produced not just in keeping with the excellently subtle, quiet, and supremely effective style of Charles and Ray eames's explanatory videos from the sixties and seventies, but also by their descendant, eames demetrios! Anybody know if that lineage was also responsible for a similarly clean, informative, and deep series of paper collateral marketing for emeco I picked up at design within reach a couple years ago?
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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.