In 2017, Montreal will celebrate 50 years since Expo 67, the year it welcomed crowds from around the world. To mark the occasion, a chair symbolizing that period for a whole generation was recently relaunched.

Expo 67 – A major event

Montreal welcomed over 50 million visitors, a feat not repeated since the Paris Exposition universelle in 1900. This huge exhibition placed Montreal and Quebec on the map and left an imprint, both on the urban landscape of the city as well as in the collective memory of modern Quebec. Qualitatively, Expo 67 also greatly influenced its culture and politics. From a design perspective, it left a huge legacy to Montreal.

How the chair was born

The events leading to 1967 propelled Quebec into modern times and a plastic chair was created. Emile Metivier, the founder of IPL and a visionary inspired by the merging of that period’s international and local designs, took on the challenge of producing a chair made of HDPE plastic resin that required a sizeable mould. Sixty thousand (60,000) of these relatively unknown and unnamed chairs were manufactured for the site of Expo 67. By the end of the 70’s, close to 150,000 chairs had been sold before the concept was pulled from the market. In 1990 a Beauce company, Les Industries Emile Lachance, purchased the mould of the seat and started using it again.

Today’s chair

The M.E67 Chair now features a metal structure manufactured in Quebec and was redesigned to promote a lighter, more contemporary look. The steel base’s design imitates the meshing of metal triangles forming the current spherical skeleton of the Biosphere, the former United States Pavilion, that famous geodesic globe conceived by Buckminster Fuller for Expo 67. The stackable M.E67 Chair can be used both indoors and outdoors and is offered in a variety of colours.

About August D.

August D. is a new Quebec furniture and design products distributor. The relaunch of the M.E67 Chair was initiated by its founder Guyleine Bureau whose passion for the chairs and design of the 60’s motivated her to help everyone relive the Expo period through the Chair. “Even though a chair seems to be a basic object, it is more than the sum of its parts. Chairs reflect social and esthetic changes through time. No other piece of furniture presents so many possibilities of making and establishing connections. The success of a chair has always depended on the quality and range of relationships it creates while meeting a specific need. A chair’s shape and materials trigger physical and psychological connections with the individual who sits on it, as well as with its surroundings and the people around it.”, says Guyleine Bureau.

Data sheet

Materials:           HDPE plastic resin and steel with

                           baked powder coating

Colors:               Charcoal grey, white , lime green

                           and other  colors on special order

Actual Design:   August D. with collaboration of

                           Meteore Design

Price:                  $179CA

Where to buy:    Leo Victor

                            3400, Boul. Matte local E, Brossard,                                 Quebec, Canada  J4Y 2Z2

                            Tel: 450 659-9988

Wholesaler:        August Distribution                                                           Tel: 514 742-8186