#ALUMINUM LAWN CHAIR WITH WEBBING HOW TO#

The straps begin as plastic pellets in the family factory (the Georgia one his grandfather owned), where they’re loaded into a hopper, mixed with ample UV protection, and extruded into a thick yarn. “It’s the reason why the chairs could never be made by a machine.”

#ALUMINUM LAWN CHAIR WITH WEBBING HOW TO#

“It takes a long time to learn how to weave a chair properly,” Pokrandt says. Each one requires a specific amount of tension: too much causes the frame to bend too little produces a loosely slung seat. The secret to the chair’s superiority can be found in its straps, which are skillfully woven by hand. Together, she and Pokrandt developed two exclusive iterations, in multicolor and black-and-white, available now.Įvery strap is woven by hand in Lawn Chair USA's manufacturing facility in Fort Pierce, Florida. Last year, the company’s authenticity caught the attention of MoMA Design Store home buyer Annie Auchincloss, who was struck by the chairs’ small-batch, handmade profile. “We’re involved in every step from start to finish,” Pokrandt says, before excusing himself to answer the office phone.

Today, it’s headquartered in Fort Pierce, Florida, where a tight-knit staff of 15 makes some 500 chairs a day using machines they built themselves and materials they fabricate (except for the aluminum piping, which is from Alabama).

So in 2010, Pokrandt’s father, who’d purchased the company from his father, decided to start a new venture that made lawn chairs just like they used to be-and Lawn Chair USA was born. “He was selling webbing to all of them,” Pokrandt says.Īs production moved overseas, the quality of furniture that utilized the webbing waned. As their popularity began to boom, he offered his textiles to manufacturers around the country. For him, the chair begins with his grandfather, who owned an extruded plastic company that spun the material into yarn that formed the straps that create a lawn chair’s seat. This story was news to Andrew Pokrandt, co-owner of Lawn Chair USA. At once novel and affordable (and an instant success), it captured the postwar-era spirit of rushing headlong into a brave new world. The chair’s minimal construction drew on of-the-moment Bauhaus design principles that are apparent in its pared-down, functional aesthetic. Once the war ended, manufacturers developed other uses for the sturdy, lightweight material-including the foldable webbed seat that’s since become synonymous with beaches and backyard barbecues. Materializing among the hope and patriotism that followed World War II, its origins lay in the aluminum tubing that formed the structural framing of airplanes.

The lawn chair is an unmistakable product of its time. Lawn Chair USA's Classic Lawn Chair (2019), made from aluminum and polypropylene in colors exclusive to MoMA Design Store.

Aluminum lawn chair with webbing