Eames and the Power of an Interdisciplinary Career
A response to the documentary Eames: The Architect and The Painter
“It’s the multi-faceted nature of the career that is fascinating.” After watching the documentary Eames: The Architect and The Painter, what struck me most was the interdisciplinary and prolific nature of the Eames work. “Was he a designer, was he a painter, was he a filmmaker?” The fact is, it didn’t matter. Each of these were simply mediums with which they could express their vision and impart their view on the world. As Charles Eames said, “Eventually everything connects.” Whether it’s furniture, toys, architecture, exhibition, photography, or film, everything connects back to one another somehow.
However, I think that it’s interesting to point out that, despite their interdisciplinary nature, the Eames are still mostly known for their furniture. The masses, while they might know the name Eames, probably won’t know that the Eames also made films and textiles, and that Rae was a painter. This reminds me of an interview I read in The Eye, a book on how the world’s most influential creative directors develop their vision.” The interview was with Devonté Hynes, who is known for his music under the stage name Blood Orange. Near the end of the interview, he is talking about his photography, and he says: “If I presented my photos, I would be a musician presenting photos and that just cringes me out.” I think it’s interesting to think about how the world almost wants creatives to be known for ‘one thing’ and actively discourages artists and designers being multi-faceted. It seems to me that the world implies if you don’t do just one thing, then you can’t be an expert in anything. I disagree. I think it’s the way different mediums inform one another and the way they culminate together to create a singular vision that truly differentiates a creative from a copycat.
This is exactly what the Eames did so well. Everything they did revolved around a few key ideas, and the consistency with which these ideas came up in their work is what makes them truly impressive and what differentiates them from other designers. I believe that their aim in everything they created can be summed up in one phrase: “The best for the most for the least.” They thrived in the post-war area, where ‘the best for the most for the least’ was what everyone wanted. However, hidden within that sentence is a sentiment even more interesting. In order to create good work around this concept, and when I say good work I mean real ground-breaking design, not somethings that might end up on an informercial (which is on the opposite end of the spectrum of items that can be created given this prompt), they had to encourage their users to find beauty and reconnect with the mundane and the ordinary. The Eames had a, “yearning to communicate the complex beauty of everyday objects.”
For this reason, when I looked through their work on the Eames official site, I was most struck by their video creations. Perhaps this is because I’m currently in a phase of life where I am interested in video, but mostly, I think I was just extremely impressed by the way in which these videos were a manifestation of this ‘beauty in the everyday’ concept. Their slide shows in particular grasped me immediately. Take for example the G.E.M slide show, pictured here:
The G.E.M. slide show (acronym for Government, Education and Management) was shown at an IBM corporate recognition event in 1967, which initially seems like it really has nothing to do with ‘the everyday’. But, without a doubt, the Eames found a way to integrate their recurrent themes. The images they show are a way of demonstrating, “looking anew at familiar details we often take for granted,” but it’s also about the “quality” and “excellence” of these familiar details. Yes, perhaps we are just looking at freeways, but when you look at these three images of freeways together, you can’t help but think about the thought and care that went into the design of those freeways. While it’s clear that, “the best for the most for the least” was at the forefront of most of their work, they also made it clear that thoughtful and elegant design was still the most important. But it was thoughtful and elegant design given constraints, and often constraints end up prompting the best work.
