BlueBolder: Take a Seat with Charles Eames

Wednesday, 20 May 2020

Take a Seat with Charles Eames

The creativity of American designers Charles and Ray Eames knew no bounds.Over the course of four decades the husband and wife made a groundbreaking impact on modern architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, and the photographic arts. They also applied their incredible minds to the devising of puzzles, toys, exhibitions, magazine covers and more.

With a grand sense of adventure, Charles and Ray Eames turned their shared curiosity and boundless enthusiasm into creations which established them as a truly great husband-and-wife design team.

Shop Eames

Their unique synergy led to a whole new look in furniture. Lean and modern. Playful and functional. Sleek, sophisticated and beautifully simple. That was and is the "Eames look".

That look and their relationship with Herman Miller started with moulded plywood chairs in the late 1940s and includes the world-renowned Eames lounge chair, now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Eames Lounge and Ottoman
Herman Miller

The Eameses

With these two, one thing always seemed to lead to another. Their revolutionary work in moulded plywood led to their breakthrough work in moulded fibreglass seating. A magazine contest led to their highly innovative "Case Study" house. Their love of photography led to film-making, including a huge seven-screen presentation at the Moscow World's Fair in 1959, in a dome designed by their friend and colleague, Buckminster Fuller.

Graphic design led to showroom design, toy collecting to toy inventing. And a wooden plank contraption for taking naps, rigged up by their friend, director Billy Wilder, led to their acclaimed chaise lounge design. A design critic once said that this extraordinary couple "just wanted to make the world a better place". That they did. They also made it a lot more interesting.