The Legacy of Charles and Ray Eames
“Design is an expression of the purpose.” Charles Eames
As the most important exponents of organic design, Charles and Ray Eames demonstrated how good design can improve quality of life and human understanding and knowledge. One of their top lessons here are the Case Study Houses - built in 1949, No. 8 was a celebration of indoor-outdoor living, and for the Eameses it became a laboratory for their shared life and work.
Design is for living. That maxim shaped a widespread shift in design during the 1940s and 1950s. It was a revolution of form, an exciting visual language that signaled a new age and a fresh start – and two of its prime movers were Charles and Ray Eames. The Eameses were a husband-and-wife team whose unique synergy led to a whole new look in furniture, amongst other industrial design categories. The Eameses adventurously pursued new ideas and forms with a sense of “serious fun.”
Yet it was rigorous discipline that allowed them to achieve perfection of form and mastery over materials. As Charles noted about the molded plywood chair, “Yes, it was a flash of inspiration – a kind of 30-year flash.” Combining imagination and thought, art and science, Charles and Ray Eames created some of the most influential expressions of 20th-century design – furniture that remains stylish, fresh and functional today. The Eameses also created the aforementioned Case Study House in response to a magazine contest. They made films, including a seven-screen installation at the 1959 Moscow World’s Fair, presented in a dome designed by Buckminster Fuller. They designed showrooms, invented toys and generally made the world a more interesting place to be 🖤
