FURNITURE
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Recognizing the need,
Charles Eames said, is the primary condition for design.
Early in their careers together, Charles and Ray identified
the need for affordable, yet high-quality furniture for
the average consumer -- furniture that could serve a variety
of uses. For forty years the Eameses experimented with
ways to meet this challenge, designing flexibility into
their compact storage units and collapsible sofas for
the home; seating for stadiums, airports, and schools;
and chairs for virtually anywhere. Their chairs were designed
for Herman Miller in four materials -- molded plywood,
fiberglass-reinforced plastic, bent and welded wire mesh,
and cast aluminum. The conceptual backbone of this diverse
work was the search for seat and back forms that comfortably
support the human body, using three dimensionally shaped
surfaces or flexible materials instead of cushioned upholstery.
An ethos of functionalism informed all of their furniture
designs. "What works is better than what looks good,"
Ray said. "The looks good can change, but what
works, works."
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Charles with a Christmas Tree
Made of Molded-plywood Chair Legs,
circa 1946, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-7)
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The Eameses' molded-plywood
chair was their first attempt to create a single shell that
would be comfortable without padding and could be quickly mass-produced.
Throughout the early 1940s, the Eameses and their colleagues
experimented with this concept. Discovering that plywood did
not withstand the stresses produced at the intersection of the
chair's seat and back, they abandoned the single-shell idea
in favor of a two-piece chair with separate molded-plywood panels
for the back and seat. The chairs -- plus molded-plywood tables
and wall screens -- were unveiled to the public in 1946. Variations
of these designs are still in production.
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Staff Member Don Albinson
Operating the Drop-hammer Mold,
1948.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-19)
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This device used molds and weights to stamp metal chair
shells. The expensive metal-stamped chair was replaced
by a low -cost fiberglass reinforced plastic chair.
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La Chaise was created for the 1948 "International Competition
for Low-Cost Furniture Design." The name "La Chaise" was
both a reference to sculptor Gaston Lachaise and a pun
on his name. Vitra AG has produced the chair since 1990.
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La Chaise,
designed 1948,
contemporary production,
fiberglass-reinforced plastic,
metal, and wood.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-24)
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Chair Designed by Charles
Eames and
Eero Saarinen for the "Organic Design
in Home Furnishings" Competition,
designed 1940, molded plywood, wood,
foam rubber, and fabric.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-02)
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The Eameses' 1946 molded-plywood chair of developed from
the chairs Charles and Saarinen entered in The Museum
of Modern Art's 1940 "Organic Design" competition in which
they took first place.
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Plywood tends to splinter when bent into acute angles.
To solve this problem, the Eameses and their colleagues
cut slits and holes into these experimental chair shells.
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Chair Shell Experiments,
designed 1941-45,
molded plywood, metal, and rubber.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-8 a-e)
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Photocollage by Herbert Matter,
photographic reproduction, detail.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-49)
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This photocollage was displayed in the 1946 exhibition
New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames at The Museum
of Modern Art, New York.
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In 1943 the Plyformed Wood Company became the Molded
Plywood Division of the Evans Products Company, whose
activities were later taken over by Herman Miller.
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Label Designed by Ray for World
War II
Molded-Plywood Leg Splints,
paper.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-76)
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Experimental "Minimum Chair,"
1948, painted metal mesh and rod.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-80)
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The Eames Office fabricated two versions of the minimum
chair: one with a seat and back of sheet metal and another
using metal mesh.
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The Eameses' fiberglass
chair solved the problem of how to make a seat out of a single
body-fitting shell. The progressive quality and moldability
of plastic made it even more alluring to the Eameses than plywood
or stamped metal. Fiberglass had been used during the war by
Zenith Plastics to reinforce plastic on airplane radar domes.
Working together, Zenith and the Eameses re-conceptualized the
use of the material, creating one of the first one-piece plastic
chairs with an exposed rather than an upholstered surface. Zenith
began mass-producing fiberglass armchairs in 1950 for the Herman
Miller Furniture Company (today Herman Miller, Inc.). The chairs
have only recently gone out of production.
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Development of Aluminum Chairs,
with Ray and Charles at left,
circa 1958, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-41)
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Development of Aluminum Chairs,
circa 1958, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-42a)
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Development of Aluminum Chairs,
circa 1958, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-42a)
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Development of Aluminum Chairs,
circa 1958, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-42a)
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Patent Drawing for Plywood Chair
Submitted by Charles,
registered in 1942,
photographic reproduction.
Manuscript Division (F-04)
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Experimental Wire and
Rod Chair Shell,
designed 1951.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-31a)
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Advertising Design for Wire
Chairs
with the Eameses' Bird Sculpture,
circa 1952, photograph. (F-38)
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Presentation Boards for The
Museum of
Modern Art's 1948 "International
Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design,"
photographs.
Prints & Photographs
Division. (F-26)
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Fiberglass chair shells on
beach,
1950, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-22)
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Staff Members Frances Bishop
and
Robert Jacobsen with a papier-maché study
and Ray with a plaster mold for La Chaise,
1948, photograph.
Prints & Photographs
Division (F-23 a)
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Mesh Structure of Plaster
Mold for La Chaise,
1948, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-23
b)
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Plaster Mold for La Chaise,
1948, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-23
c)
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Stack of Fiberglass-reinforced
Plastic Chairs,
1954, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-25)
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Ray's Drawing of Plywood Chairs,
photographic reproduction.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-15)
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Mold for Welding Wire Chair
Shells,
1951, plaster and wood.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-32)
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Lounge Chair Prototype,
designed 1945,
molded plywood, slunk-skin
upholstery, and rubber.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-11)
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Inspired by trays, dress
forms, baskets, and animal traps, the Eames Office investigated
bent and welded wire mesh as the basis for furniture designs.
The wire-mesh chair, like the fiberglass chair, was a uni-shell
design. The shell could be adapted to various base configurations
and upholstery types. Ingenious techniques were developed to
mass-produce suitable upholstery, and special molds were created
as forms over which to weld the wire shells. The office adapted
a resistance-welding technique used for making drawers and developed
an innovative method for reinforcing the shell's rim with a
double band of wire. The wire chairs are still in production.
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Molded-plywood sculpture,
1943, wood.
Lent by Lucia Eames (D-10)
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During World War II, the Eameses and a group of inventive
collaborators designed leg splints, aircraft parts, and
stretchers made of molded plywood for the federal government
and the local aviation industry. Shortly afterward, the
Eameses used the expertise to create their first commercially
produced, molded-plywood furniture.
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Underwritten by the Museum of International Folk Art
in Santa Fe, Day of the Dead explores Mexican
ideas of mortality as expressed in folk art associated
with All Souls' Day.
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Film frame from Day of
the Dead,
1957, photograph.
© Lucia Eames dba Eames Office (D-15)
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Stroboscopic, Multiple-exposure
photograph by Herbert Matter
of Rotating Drum.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-06)
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Made by the Eames Office to demonstrate the durability
of their molded-plywood chairs, the drum was displayed
in the 1946 exhibition New Furniture Designed by Charles
Eames at The Museum of Modern Art, New York
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The office made this jig to determine the seat and back
angles of the molded-plywood chairs.
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Adjustable Jig Made by the
Eames Office,
circa 1945, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-17)
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Staff Member Jim Sommers
Sitting in Eames Tandem Sling Seating,
circa 1962, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-45)
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The aluminum chair's concept formed the basis of the
office's 1962 Eames Tandem Sling Seating, an institutional
multiple-seating system designed for Washington's Dulles
International Airport.
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Furniture Brochure,
circa 1946, printed mock-up.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-65)
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Hang-tags and label for
HERMAN MILLER furniture
Page 2
Prints & Photographs Division
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Postcard Promoting Plywood,
Fiberglass, and Wire Chairs,
1954.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-69)
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F-68
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Charles's Drawing for Showroom
Polyhedron and Furniture,
circa 1954, pencil on paper.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-73)
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Eames Storage Unit Brochure,
circa 1950
Lent by Herman Miller Inc. (B-21)
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Griswald Raetze and Office Staff
Working
on a Molded-Plywood Airplane Part,
1943, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-05)
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Aluminum Chaise "ES 106,"
designed 1968, manufactured 1968,
cast aluminum and leather upholstery.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-77)
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Brochure Designed to Promote
Plywood, Fiberglass, and Wire Chairs,
circa 1954.
Manuscript Division (F-36)
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Hang-Tags and Label
for Herman Miller Furniture.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-74)
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Drawing for Postcard,
colored pencil, pastel and
collage on paper.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-70)
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Eames Storage Unit Brochure,
circa 1950
Page 2
Lent by Herman Miller Inc. (B-20)
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Photo Shoot for Aluminum Furniture
Advertisement near the Eames Office,
1959, photograph.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-43)
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Experimental Metal Legs for
Chairs,
designed 1950-52.
Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum (F-12a-c)
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Drawing by Ray,
photographic reproduction.
Prints & Photographs
Division (F-37)
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Aluminum Furniture Advertisement,
Fortune, May 1960,
photographic reproduction.
Prints & Photographs Division (F-44)
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Library
of Congress
