The Eames
Charles and Ray Eames, The Architect and The Painter, the couple that transformed the field of design in the 20th century. And all from their Renaissance-style studio in Venice, California, where they settled after their marriage in 1941.
In the early 1940s, they were the first to be able to design and mass-produce molded plywood furniture with compound curves. Word spread about their groundbreaking innovation, all the way to the military during World War II, and the Eames were brought into the war efforts and were commissioned by the Navy to produce several molded plywood products, including, splints, stretchers, and airplane parts.
After the war, in 1946, the couple continued with their furniture design. Little did they know that some of their designs will later become iconic artifacts in the field, such as their molded plywood chair that was called “the chair of the century”. In 1949 they built their own home in Pacific Palisades, California, where they lived for the rest of their lives. Their house was part of the Case Study House Program and as well as a home for their creative expression. They wrote books, designed museum exhibitions, made films, and more. The innovative design and use of unique materials led the house to become one of the most important post-war residences anywhere in the world.
The DCW molded plywood chair did not receive its nickname, “the chair of the century”, for no reason. It is far more than just a piece of furniture. It symbolizes the beginning of a new era in design during the 20th century. It redefined the meaning of innovation by combining art, architecture, design, usability, practicality, and aesthetics into one product. In 1946, the “Eames Plywood Chair” was introduced to the world on display at a MoMA exhibition “New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames”. Beyond exhibiting its innovative design, MOMA showcased the chair’s durability by featuring a tumbling drum that arduously flipped the chairs around.
But what truly sets this chair and its founders apart was the use of empathy when creating it. They did not just make a beautiful chair, with innovative shapes, techniques, and materials. They thought long and hard what design features the chair needs in order to address both the user's needs as well as its durability. They were the pioneers of design thinking, and they didn’t even know it. In 1954, the Eames created a film about the chair’s development and it was showcased in SF MoMA. Here is a piece of the narration:
“In a more or less standard situation like sitting for eating or writing, we found that certain relationship of support gives optimum comfort to a surprisingly large number of people. We found that comfort depended more on the perfect molding to the body shape than it did on the way the bone structure was supported. And if the structure was supported properly, the hard and rigid material like molded plywood can provide a remarkably high degree of comfort. We limited the solution to a hard surface and concentrated on plywood. . . . We tried movement and found that if the back was allowed to move in relation to the seat, the latitude of comfort was greatly increased. First, the movement was mechanical. Then it developed into the idea of a rubber shocked mount and movable connection. In the design of any structure, it is often the connection that provides the key to the solution. The factor of movement also help to crystallize the idea of a chair in two pieces — the seat and a back. The two surfaces developed into petal-like form. Model, remodeled, test and re-test a hundred times. Contoured, repaired and lost it. Always checking the back and seat of many people. It seems practical to have a frame that would hold the two surfaces in relation to each other and in relation to the floor.”
The history of the chair marked the future of design, all with the technological constraints of the 20th century. Tremendous aspects of the fields of architecture and design today are based on the Eames’ designs and inventions. I wonder what they would have created had they have been creating and innovating in our present, the 21st century, and in the midst of the technological revolution.
