Charles Eames (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) (pronounced [imz]) was an American
designer, architect and filmmaker who, together with his wife Ray, is responsible for many classic,
iconic designs of the 20th century.
Biography
Charles Ormond Eames, Jr was born in 1907 in Saint Louis, Missouri. By the time he was 14 years old, while attending high school, Charles worked at the Laclede Steel Company as a part-time laborer, where he learned about engineering, drawing, and
architecture (and also first entertained the idea of one day becoming an architect).
Charles briefly studied architecture at Washington University in
St. Louis on an architectural scholarship. He proposed studying Frank Lloyd Wright to
his professors, and when he would not cease his interest in modern architects, he was dismissed from the university. In the
report describing why he was dismissed from the university, a professor wrote the comment "His views were too modern." While at
Washington University, he met his first wife, Catherine Woermann, whom he married in 1929. A year
later, they had a daughter, Lucia.
After he left school and was married, Charles began his own architectural practice, with partners Charles Gray and later
Walter Pauley.
Silhouettes of Charles and Ray Eames from the educational film
A Communications Primer
One great influence on him was the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (whose son
Eero, also an architect, would become a partner and friend). At the elder Saarinen's
invitation, he moved in 1938 with his wife Catherine and daughter Lucia to Michigan, to further
study architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he would
become a teacher and head of the industrial design department. One of the requirements
of the Architecture and Urban Planning Program, at the time Eames applied, was for the student to have decided upon his project
and gathered as much pertinent information in advance – Eames' interest was in the St. Louis waterfront. Together with Eero
Saarinen he designed prize-winning furniture for New York's Museum of Modern Art "Organic Design" competition. Their work displayed the new technique of wood
moulding (originally developed by Alvar Aalto), that Eames would further develop in many
moulded plywood products, including, beside chairs and other
furniture, splints and stretchers for the U.S.
Navy during World War II.
In 1941, Charles and Catherine divorced, and he married his Cranbrook colleague Ray Kaiser, who was born in Sacramento, California. He then moved with her to Los Angeles, California, where they would work and live for
the rest of their lives. In the late 1940s, as part of the Arts &
Architecture magazine "Case Study" program, Ray and Charles designed and built
the groundbreaking Eames House, Case Study House
#8, as their home. Located upon a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and
constructed entirely of pre-fabricated steel parts intended for industrial construction, it
remains a milestone of modern architecture.
Designers
In the 1950s, the Eameses would continue their work in architecture and modern furniture design, often (like in the earlier moulded plywood work) pioneering innovative
technologies, such as the fiberglass and plastic resin chairs and the wire mesh chairs
designed for Herman Miller. Besides this work, Charles would soon
channel his interest in photography into the production of short films. From their first one, the unfinished Traveling Boy (1950), to the extraordinary Powers of Ten (1977), their cinematic work was an outlet for ideas, a vehicle for experimentation and education.
The Eameses also conceived and designed a number of landmark exhibitions. The first of these, Mathematica: a world of numbers...and beyond (1961), was sponsored by IBM, and is the only one of their exhibitions still existant. The original was created for
a new wing of the (currently named) California Science Center; it is now owned
by and on display at the New York Hall of Science. In late 1961 a duplicate was
created for the Museum of Science and Industry in
Chicago; in 1980 it moved to the Museum of Science,
Boston. Another version was created for the 1964/1965 New York World's
Fair IBM exhibit. After the World's Fair it was moved to the Pacific Science
Center in Seattle where it stayed until 1980. The Mathematica Exhibition is still considered a model for scientific popularization exhibitions. It was followed by "A Computer Perspective: Background to the Computer
Age" (1971) and "The World of Franklin and Jefferson" (1975-1977), among others.
The office of Charles and Ray Eames, which functioned for more than four decades (1943-88) at 901 Washington Boulevard in
Venice, California, included in its staff, at one time of another, a
number of remarkable designers, like Don Albinson, Deborah
Sussman, Richard Foy and Henry Beer. Among the many important designs originating there are the molded-plywood DCW (Dining
Chair Wood) and DCM (Dining Chair Metal with a plywood seat) (1945), Eames Lounge
Chair (1956), the Aluminum Group furniture (1958) and as well
as the Eames Chaise (1968), designed for Charles's friend, film director Billy Wilder, the playful Do-Nothing Machine (1957), an early solar
energy experiment, and a number of toys.
Short films produced by the couple often document their interests in collecting toys and cultural artifacts on their travels.
The films also record the process of hanging their exhibits or producing classic furniture designs, to the purposefully mundane
topic of filming soap suds moving over the pavement of a parking lot. Perhaps their most popular movie, "Powers of 10",
gives a dramatic demonstration of orders of magnitude by visually zooming away from
the earth to the edge of the universe, and then microscopically zooming into the nucleus of a carbon atom. Charles was a prolific
photographer as well with thousands of images of their furniture, exhibits and collections, and now a part of the Library of
Congress.
Charles Eames died of a heart attack on August 21, 1978 while on a consulting trip in his native
Saint Louis, and now has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Ray died 10 years
later to the exact day.
At the time of his death they were working on what became their last production, the Eames
Sofa which went into production in 1984.
Philosophy
A sketch by Charles Eames illustrating the Eames design Process
The Eames philosophy was very much entrenched in process.[citation needed] Process to get to the final product often took years of trial and
error.[citation needed]
In 1970-71, Eames gave the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at
Harvard University. At the lectures, the Eames viewpoint and philosophy are related
through Charles' own telling of what he called the banana leaf parable, a banana leaf being the most basic dish off which
to eat in southern India. He related the progression of design and its process where the banana leaf is transformed into
something fantastically ornate. He explains the next step and ties it to the design process by finishing the parable with:
- "But you can go beyond that and the guys that have not only means, but a certain amount of knowledge and understanding, go
the next step and they eat off of a banana leaf. And I think that in these times when we fall back and regroup, that somehow or
other, the banana leaf parable sort of got to get working there, because I'm not prepared to say that the banana leaf that one
eats off of is the same as the other eats off of, but it's that process that has happened within the man that changes the banana
leaf. And as we attack these problems – and I hope and I expect that the total amount of energy used in this world is going to go
from high to medium to a little bit lower – the banana leaf idea might have a great part in it."[citation needed]
Works
-
This is an incomplete list, which may never be
able to satisfy certain standards for completeness.
- Revisions and sourced additions are
welcome.
Architecture
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch model home (193?)
- St. Mary's Church (Helena, Arkansas) (193?)
- Meyer House (1938)
- Bridge house (Eames - Saarinen) (1945)
- Case Study House #8 (1945)
- Eames House (1949)
Selected films
Exhibition design
- Glimpses of the USA (7 screens for the American exhibition in Moscow, Sokoolniki Park) (1959)
- Mathematica (for IBM) (1961)
- IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair
- Nehru: The man and his India (1965)
- The World of Franklin and Jefferson (1975) built for the US Bicentennial Commission opens in Paris, travels to 5 other
countries and the US.
Exhibits and retrospectives
Furniture
Eames Lounge Chair Wood (LCW)
- Eames-Saarinen Kleinhans chair (1939)
- Eames-Saarinen organic chair (1941)
- Children's chairs (1945)
- Eames Lounge Chair Wood (LCW) (1945)
- Circular table wood (1945)
- Eames Plywood Side Chair (1946)
- La chaise (1948)
- Eames RAR (Rocker Armchair Rod) Rocker (1948)
- Eames Eiffel Plastic Side Chair (1950)
- Eames Eiffel Plastic Armchair (1950)
- Eames Desk and Storage Units (1950)
- Eames Desk and Storage Units (1950)
- Eames Sofa Compact (1954)
- Eames lounge chair and ottoman (1956)
- Eames Aluminum Management Chair (1958)
- Eames Aluminum Side Chair (1958)
- Eames Aluminum Ottoman (1958)
- Eames Walnut Stool (3 styles; Shapes A, B and C 1960)
- Eames tandem sling seating (1962)
- Two piece plastic chair (1971)
- Eames Sofa (1984) produced after Eames' death
(most of the above are still available; see http://www.hermanmiller.com)
Other
- Molded plywood splint (~1942) for the US military
- Molded plywood nose cone and other parts for the CG-16 (flying flatcar) glider (1943)
- Pilot seat (1946) Prototype in molded plywood for the military
- Newton deck of cards
- House of cards (1952)
Quotes
- "No, Ray is not my brother."[citation needed]
- "Innovate as a last resort."[citation needed]
- "Design is the appropriate combination of materials in order to solve a problem."[citation needed]
- "I don't remember being forced to accept compromises, but I've willingly accepted constraints."[citation needed]
- "Take your pleasures seriously."[citation needed]
- “The details are not the details. They make the design.”[citation needed]
- "I like to consider myself to be very very funny, the funny thing is, I dont know what a joke actually is."[citation needed]
Further reading
- John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart, Ray Eames Eames Design. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc. 1989. (ISBN 0-8109-0879-4)
- Eames Demetrios An Eames Primer. New York: Universe, 2002. (ISBN 0-7893-0629-8)
- Gössel, Peter (ED)Koenig Gloria Eames Taschen 2005 (ISBN 3-8228-3651-6)
External links
Official sites:
Pictures
Chairs and furniture:
Resources
Film references
Films in the public domain:
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