Best Dining Chairs Australia: The Designer Edit, Argued Properly

The best dining chairs sold in Australia earn that description on three counts: the material holds up over decades, the construction has nothing to hide, and the price is legible against what actually went into making it. From Objena's current range, five chairs clear that bar — two arguments in aluminium and three that use solid timber, from a steam-bent oak back to a carved three-legged workshop seat.

The aluminium workhorse: Emeco's 1006 Navy Chair

In 1944, aluminium producer Alcoa worked with the US Navy to build a chair for submarines and warships: lightweight, non-corrosive, fire-resistant, able to survive conditions no timber chair would. The result, the 1006 Navy Chair, is still built the way it was then — a 77-step hand process of forming, welding, tempering and finishing that takes roughly three days and up to fourteen different pairs of hands per chair. It's made from 80% recycled aluminium at Emeco's factory in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and it's the only chair in this list backed by a lifetime guarantee — a warranty that only makes sense once you know what the chair was originally built to survive.

Recycled plastic, on solid ash: Emeco's Alfi

Jasper Morrison's Alfi, designed for Emeco in 2015 and built in the same Hanover, Pennsylvania factory as the 1006, solves the durability problem a different way: solid ash legs carry a seat moulded entirely from reclaimed post-industrial waste — a blend the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt design museum records, for Emeco's recycled-seat programme, as roughly 92.5% polypropylene to 7.5% wood fibre. Nothing about it reads as engineering the way the 1006 does; it's a quieter, five-year-warrantied chair built to disappear into a dining table rather than announce itself.

Solid oak, drawn like a technical section: Form & Refine's Blueprint Chair

Where the Emeco chairs argue by material, Form & Refine's Blueprint Chair argues by proportion. Designer Jonas Herman built it in FSC-certified solid European oak, with a backrest steam-bent from a single piece of timber and a moulded-veneer seat set on solid legs — a construction he describes as searching "to balance something refined and robust at the same time," while making sure it stayed "stackable, comfortable and fit into any environment." At 5.1 kg it's the lightest chair here, and the only one where the wood grain is the whole visual argument.

A carved workshop chair, and the case for raw aluminium

The remaining two chairs solve the same problem from opposite ends of the material spectrum. Form & Refine's Shoemaker Chair no. 49 refines a traditional three-legged workshop seat in FSC-certified solid oak, with a carved seat shaped for the body rather than padded over. FRAMA's Rivet Chair argues the opposite case in aluminium: designer Jonas Trampedach developed the technique in 2011 at Copenhagen's Statens Værksteder for Kunst specifically to avoid welding aluminium, joining laser-cut sheet metal with hand-hammered rivets instead. Left untreated, the metal patinas and picks up small scratches with use — a chair designed to show its age rather than resist it.

Objena carries the 1006 Navy Chair (AUD 1,310) and the Blueprint Chair (AUD 810) as two clear starting points — one aluminium, one oak. The Alfi (AUD 940), Shoemaker Chair no. 49 (AUD 1,320) and Rivet (AUD 3,680) widen the choice by posture, material and making method.

Three questions

What makes a dining chair durable enough to last decades in Australia? Construction that doesn't rely on glue or veneer to hold its shape, and a material chosen for what it resists rather than how it photographs. Emeco's 1006 Navy Chair was engineered in 1944 to survive submarine conditions — corrosion, impact, fire — through a 77-step hand process; that same over-engineering is why it still carries a lifetime guarantee eighty years on.

Is aluminium or timber better for a dining chair in an Australian climate? Both hold up, for different reasons. Recycled aluminium, as used in Emeco's 1006 Navy Chair, does not dry out or crack in dry heat. Solid timber — FSC-certified oak in Form & Refine's Blueprint and Shoemaker chairs, or ash legs in Emeco's Alfi — moves with humidity, so placement and maker-specified care matter.

How much should a genuine designer dining chair cost? It varies by material and labour, not by name. The five chairs in this edit run from AUD 810 for Form & Refine's Blueprint Chair to AUD 3,680 for FRAMA's hand-riveted aluminium Rivet Chair. Compare the construction, material, repairability and intended use before comparing the badge.