Slow Furniture

Jean-Marie Massaud’s Holy Day Lounge for Viccarbe is now being manufactured in North Carolina. This Labor Day weekend, San Francisco will host the first annual Slow Food Nation, a massive coming-out party for the American branch of the international Slow Food movement, which promotes a sustainable food system (and such delicacies as Bosnian Sack Cheese). […]

Jean-Marie Massaud’s Holy Day Lounge for Viccarbe is now being manufactured in North Carolina.

This Labor Day weekend, San Francisco will host the first annual Slow Food Nation, a massive coming-out party for the American branch of the international Slow Food movement, which promotes a sustainable food system (and such delicacies as Bosnian Sack Cheese).

Last Monday, I visited the Chicago showroom of Coalesse, a new brand of the office-furniture behemoth Steelcase, which is experimenting with the idea of “slow furniture”—essentially, furniture that has been manufactured near to where it will be distributed. Coalesse’s line includes chairs and tables by the Spanish company Viccarbe, but instead of having them shipped from Valencia, Coalesse set up a second manufacturing facility in High Point, North Carolina.

Granted, this a small step—High Point is only local if you live in the Southeast—but it should be interesting to see if locally manufactured furniture gains ground in the ever-growing competition for green-design cachet. In the meantime, North Carolinians can rest easy that their $2,500 Jean-Marie Massaud chairs were made in their own backyard.

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