Eames Assignment
Ray and Charles Eames are known for their important contributions to manufacturing, photography, and furniture design. Charles was born in Missouri and was later kicked out of Washington University due to his support for Frank Lloyd Wright. Ironically enough, Charles also was involved in a love affair which is how he met Ray. Ray was born in California and met Charles at Cranbrook (interesting fact is that I live about 3 minutes away from Cranbrook!).
The artifact that I want to focus on is the organic chair; after all, not only is this is the chair that started everything, but it draws from other artifacts that they have created. This chair was first designed by Charles and his friend Eero Saarinen for the 1940 competition Organic Design in Home Furnishings. They set out not to just improve what a chair is, but to actually attempt to reinvent the idea of a chair. Their goal was to create an inexpensive and easily mass-produced that molded well to the body (strayed from the typical upholster design). The goal for Charles was to create this form-fitting chair out of a single piece of plywood that was molded in two different directions. Their design failed as it was not able to be manufactured. Though they were not successful in this manner, Charles and Eero did end up winning the competition giving these two unknown architects the first glimpse in the spotlight. Eero quickly lost interest in furthering the project and so Charles was left alone in his dreams. During this time, he ended up meeting Ray at Cranbrook whom eventually became his wife and his partner in reaching the dream of this reinvented chair. Charles and Ray applied the lessons they learned when making splints during WWII by allowing the “design to flow from the learning” rather than designing the look first. This is also when they developed the Eames design process which is learning by doing and to “never delegate understanding”. Charles and Ray would study the different structures of humans and create countless prototypes to test. Their design finally became successful. Eames furniture bloomed during the postwar era and is still a big name into present day today.
The story is pretty influential to me. I see many people stopping, such as Eero did, after getting some sort of justification/gratification for work. Through The Eames’ story it is clear that other people’s opinions/thoughts shouldn’t be the only thing dictating your passions and your work. If Charles had given up with Eero, his success story and his journey to Ray may not have happened at all. For me, this message that I get from learning about Charles and Ray Eames ties in with the message that I received from Denise Scott Brown. Both talk about this self-worth message and how that can and should be enough given the crude circumstances of this world. Ray certainly brought a huge contribution, yet due to her being a woman and her being an illicit love affair in the beginning, some don’t view her on the same tier as how they may view Charles Eames. I am glad that I was able to learn more about the story behind Charles and Ray Eames and the message that they have sent.
