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| August 2, 2007
Designer Gives a Classic Alcoa Product a New Look
PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Through the years, Alcoa (NYSE:AA) aluminum has been used in everything
from airplanes to food packaging to Ferraris, but recently, the
sustainable metal was cast again into one of the first items it had
originally been used for over 100 years ago –
a teapot.
New York-based industrial designer Joey Roth’s
unique Sorapot evolved from an unlikely combination of the artist’s
love of tea and an engineering class on the topic of bridges. The design
of the pot, Roth said, emphasizes tea making as a ritual while
showcasing the brewing of either green or white tea leaves. Roth chose
to use Alcoa aluminum for the Sorapot because of its advantages over
other materials. The majority of the aluminum plate used to make the
teapot is sourced from Alcoa Bohai, located in Qinhuangdao, China.
“I was originally going to cast it from
stainless steel, but aluminum’s light weight
and better flow rate gave me the freedom to design exactly the shapes I
had in mind,” Roth said. In addition, he said
that aluminum is ideal for its ability to transfer heat without allowing
the water to get too hot for delicate tea leaves. Roth said there is no
other metal he could cast in the shape he needs for the pot.
It was for some of the same shape- and weight-related benefits that a
teakettle was one of the first products made with Alcoa aluminum in
1895, when Arthur Vining Davis created the piece of cookware to display
a new use for aluminum. The owner of the company he showed the teapot to –
the Griswold Company of Erie, Pa – was so
impressed that an order was placed for 2,000 kettles. Despite Davis’s
attempts to explain that he only wanted to sell Griswold the aluminum,
Alcoa was forced to enter the fabricating business to prove there was a
market for the metal.
While Alcoa’s original aluminum teapots can
now only be found in museums and antique collections, Roth’s
new design will be available through his website, www.joeyroth.com,
beginning in September.
About Alcoa
Alcoa is the world's leading producer and manager of primary aluminum,
fabricated aluminum and alumina facilities, and is active in all major
aspects of the industry. Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive,
packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation and
industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production and other
capabilities of Alcoa's businesses to customers. In addition to aluminum
products and components including flat-rolled products, hard alloy
extrusions, and forgings, Alcoa also markets Alcoa®
wheels, fastening systems, precision and investment castings, structures
and building systems. The company has 116,000 employees in 44 countries
and has been named one of the top most sustainable corporations in the
world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. More
information can be found at www.alcoa.com
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