Emeco 1 Inch Cafe Table by Jasper Morrison

Emeco began in 1944, using salvaged aluminum to make chairs for the US Navy, a war-time necessity. That became an ongoing direction. Today they use also scrap plastic, keeping it out of oceans and landfills and turning it instead into chairs that last. A planet necessity.

“Begin with what's left over. Turn it into what will last.”

Jasper Morrison, born in 1959 in London, studied at the Royal College of Art in London. He pursued further studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin on a fellowship. In 1986 he founded his own design studio in London.

Two early projects that gained attention were room installations, "Reuters News Center" for Documenta 8 in Kassel, and "Some New Items for the Home" at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin. The stringent concepts of these projects, which featured starkly reductive objects, represented a reaction to the formal excesses of postmodernism.

Jasper Morrison became a leading figure of "New Simplicity", a movement that advocated a more modest and also more serious approach to design. In addition to furniture, he has also created lamps, home accessories, textiles, a tram system for the city of Hanover, Germany, and a bus shelter for the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein.

His joint 2006 exhibition with the Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, entitled "Super Normal", put forth provocative theses that once again stimulated great discussion. Along with Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Hella Jongerius, Jasper Morrison has made essential contributions to the steadily growing Vitra Home Collection.