Ray and Charles Eames

Ray and Charles Eames were among the most important designers of the 21st century. They were the first to design and mass produce moulded plywood furniture with fibreglass-reinforced plastic, bent metal wire and aluminium. He was an architect by training, she was a painter and sculptor, together they are considered America’s most important and influential designers. In the 40s Charles worked with Eero Saarinen, with whom he started to investigate the artistic possibilities of the new mid-20th century materials like plastic, which enabled die-press stamping of seats.

Chair Shell Experiments, designed 1941-45, moulded plywood, metal, and rubber.

 Their work came to the attention of the military in World War 2 and they were asked to design moulded plywood splints, stretchers and aeroplane parts. They continued their work in furniture design after the war. 

Lounge chair the chase 1968.

Eames Splints for military

Eames Strechers

The Eames house had modern and classic architecture; it was decorated with an eclectic and colourful mix of toys, kites and eastern wares. They also wrote books and designed museum exhibitions, made films, designed toys and etc.

The elephant toy designed my the Ray and Charles Eames is still in production till this day.

Their moulded plywood chair was called “the chair of the century” by the influential architectural critic Esther McCoy. Later on Herman Miller took over the production of this chair and still continues to do so till this day. He also changed the chair’s design but not all of it he just 'played'around with it to make it more wanted, for people to continue buying.

Eames design of the  chair

The small differences Herman Miller did to the chair design. He added a softer base for sitting and he also did other designs with tubular metal legs to give a nice new contemporary look to them.

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