Net'n'Nest

Tribute to Charles & Ray Eames

Charles Eames (born 1907) studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. He opened his own office with Charles M. Gray in 1930, and another architectural firm with Robert T. Walsh in 1935. After receiving a fellowship in 1938 from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, he moved to Michigan and assumed a teaching position in the design department.

In 1940, he and Eero Saarinen won first prize for their joint entry in the competition “Organic Design in Home Furnishings” organized by the New York Museum of Modern Art. During the same year, Eames became head of the department of industrial design at Cranbrook, and in 1941 he married Ray Kaiser.

Ray Eames (born 1912 as Bernice Alexandra Kaiser) attended the May Friend Bennet School in Millbrook, New York, and continued her studies in painting through 1937. She matriculated at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940 and married Charles Eames the following year.

Charles & Ray Eames showed an exhibition of experimental moulded plywood furniture at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1946. The Herman Miller Company in Zeeland, Michigan, subsequently began to produce the Eameses’ furniture designs. In 1948, they participated in the “Low-Cost Furniture Competition” at MoMA, and in 1949 they built their Case Study houses.

Around 1955 they began to focus more on their extensive work as photographers and filmmakers, and in 1964 an honorary doctoral degree from the Pratt Institute (N.Y) highlighted Charles’ achievements. The Eames Office designed the IBM Pavilion for the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York, and the year 1969 they participated in the exhibition “Qu’est-ce que le design?’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. In 1970-71, Charles was invited to hold the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry lecture series at Harvard University.

Charles Eames died in St. Louis in 1978; Ray’s death followed in 1988.

The influence of Charles and Ray Eames was fundamental to the development of Vitra. Its activity as a furniture manufacturer began in 1957 with the production of their designs. Yet it was not only the products of Charles and Ray Eames that left their mark on Vitra. With their approach to and understanding of design, they made an ongoing contribution to the values and goals of the company.

see more: www.eamesoffice.com