Remastered for today’s work and workers Lean, light, and responsiveas your own shadow Fewer parts, less material, and stilleverything a good chair should be Support you can see and feel Learn how original co-designer Don Chadwick and Herman Miller remastered the Aeron Chair. Made up of just six elements, the Plex family flexes on demand. Hear how Embody supports the research of ophthalmic neurobiologist Budd Tucker. Charles EamesCharles Eames (born 1907 in St. Louis/USA; died 1978 in St. Louis,/USA) studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis and in 1930 opened his own office together with Charles M. Gray. In 1935 he founded a second architectural firm with Robert T. Walsh. After receiving a fellowship in 1938 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, he moved to Michigan and assumed a teaching position in the design department the following year. In 1940, Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen won first prize for their joint entry Organic Chair (also known as Conversation Chair) in the competition "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" organized by the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMa).
During the same year, Eames became head of the department of industrial design at Cranbrook. In 1941 he married Ray Kaiser. Ray EamesRay Eames (née Bernice Alexandra Kaiser, born 1912 Sacramento/USA; died 1988 ) , attended the May Friend Bennet School in Millbrook, New York, and continued her studies in painting under Hans Hofmann through 1937. During this year she exhibited her work in the first exhibition of the American Abstract Artists group at the Riverside Museum in New York. She matriculated at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940 and married Charles Eames the following year. Charles and Ray Eames - Design Team Charles Eames and Bernice Alexandra Kaiser first met at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940 and married in 1941. In the same year the pair moved to Los Angeles and established their own design studio Eames Office. Following their work with plywood for the US military it came as no surprise that their first furniture creations were also plywood; for example design chairs such as the DCW and LCW and accessories such as their folding screen or their Eames Elephant.
In the late 1940s Eames started to seriously experiment with modern materials, including fibreglass resin. Apart from their natural desire to test modern technology, the step was also true to one of Charles Eames' mottos: "The most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least". The Organic chair produced in 1940 by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen had been their first attempt at a fibreglass chair, however it was not until the 1950s that the technology became available to produce such chairs in large quantities. The fibreglass armchair and sidechair ranges from Charles and Ray Eames, including such classics as the Eames DSR, DARor DAW were the most obvious fruits of that period. In 1993 Vitra switched from fibreglass resin to the more environmentally friendly recyclable polypropylene for the production of the, now, plastic armchair and plastic side chair ranges. 1956 saw the creation of one of the most easily recognisable of all Charles and Ray Eames's work the Eames Lounge chair and Ottoman - a modern interpretation of the classic English Gentleman's Club chair.
Following the success of their Lounge chair Charles and Ray Eames again switched material with their aluminium chair range (eg. ES 117, EA 119 ), before in 1960 their undertook one of their most famous commissions - creating lobby chairs and stools for the Rockefeller Centre in New York by Time Inc. The resulting walnut Eames stools and the Eames Lobby Chairs ES 104, ES 105 and ES 106 remaining amongst the most iconic of mid-20th century American design. From a design career that spanned three decades, Charles and Ray Eames left the world a rich heritage of designer furniture and design philosophy that continues to motivate, excite and enthral designers, consumers and critics alike. Grand Rapids Art Museum presents Modern Design at GRAM: 20th Century FurnitureAnd that it isn't just about objects which look "cool" To this end the presentation features 20th Century Furniture designs by the likes of Verner Panton, Marcel Breuer, Frank Gehry or Charles and Ray Eames... The latter being an inclusion which, and given that the Herman Miller factory, and thus the point where Charles and Ray's visions became reality, stands just 30 kilometres down the road, poses the obvious question, "Does a 20th century furniture design exhibition in West Michigan have to include works by Charles and Ray Eames?...
smow blog Interview: Eames Demetrios - I don't think Charles and Ray were ever satisfied with their own work, they were always trying to make it betterIn our post from the Barbican Art Gallery exhibition "The World of Charles and Ray Eames" we noted the disappointing sparsity with which the otherwise excellent exhibition deals with the private world of Charles and Ray Eames... Aside from having grown up with Charles and Ray, as current Director of the Eames Office in Los Angeles Eames Demetrios is in many respects the Official Keeper of the Eames legacy and in addition to working with Herman Miller, Vitra and the Vitra Design Museum on the Eames product lines has also been responsible for numerous film, exhibition and book projects on Charles and Ray Eames and their work; his most recent book, "An Eames Primer", in many respects covering much of the ground we felt is and was missing in the Barbican exhibition... The World of Charles and Ray Eames @ The Barbican Art Gallery, London
Charles Eames was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1907... "I think they simply liked the relationship with the companies" replies Charles Eames' grandson and current Eames Office director, Eames Demetrios, "even though Hermann Miller and Vitra were aware of the "design" label, their principle aim was to deliver quality products that worked and Charles and Ray Eames wanted to bring well designed products to as many people as possible, and so the two worked very well together... smow blog Design Calendar: June 17th 1907– Happy Birthday Charles Eames!Charles Eames is arguably the best known representative of post-war American design... Yet exactly because of the success of his post-war work it is often forgotten that Charles Eames has a pre-war biography, a biography that is pre-Ray Kaiser, pre-George Nelson, pre-Hermann Miller, pre-Vitra, pre-plywood, plastic and aluminium, pre-IBM, Moscow, India, Mathematica, Franklin & Jefferson...In a 1977 conversation with the Owen Gingerich Charles Eames talks at length about plagiarism & plagiarists including some very interesting passages on why the pair stopped striving for patents themselves, preferring to leave such decisions to the manufacturers, how Herman Miller noticed increased sales of the Eames' plastic chair collection every time new copies appeared and the importance of the moral patent that exists between designers
, an unspoken understanding that "thou shalt not copy" Having discussed the prevalence of copies of Eames' chairs Gingerich asks, "But don't you have to worry about plagiarism?... By way of a postscript, the conversation begins with a discussion about some chairs Eames and Gingerich had seen at Arlanda Airport Stockholm a few years earlier, a passage that offers some nice insights into both Charles Eames' understanding of who was responsible for the Eames' designs and also the problem of the ubiquitous global designer... Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat ... colour and fun from Alexander GirardAlthough Alexander Girard worked closely with Herman Miller and designers such as George Nelson or Charles and Ray Eames; Alexander Girard's speciality was not furniture but fabrics, folk art and colour... La Fonda Armchair by Charles and Ray Eames Although designed by Charles and Ray Eames the La Fonda Armchair was commissioned for one of Alexander Girard's most important interior design projects in New York - the La Fonda del Sol restaurant in the Rockefeller Centre...