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The Eames architecture promised good design for minimal cost through the use of prefabricated standardized parts. At the end of World War II the Eameses joined a larger movement of architects and builders aiming to supply the veteran with affordable housing. From their own house in Los Angeles to their proposal for the do-it-yourself Kwikset House, the Eameses sought to bring the "good life" to the general public, integrating high and low art forms, modern materials and construction technologies, craft and design. They advocated mass-production of architectural components, furnishings and accessories as the ideal way to spread low-cost, high quality modern design throughout America. Although ultimately the Eameses designed few buildings, they popularized basic tenets of their architecture in their toys, furniture, films and slide shows.

Eames House Studio with Dried Desert Plants,
circa 1950

space

Charles's Illustration for the Article "What Is a House",
published in Arts and Architecture, July, 1944
photographic reproduction

Eames House

Interior of Eames House

House of Cards,
designed 1952, contemporary edition

Eames Storage Unit,
designed 1949–50 manufactured 1950–52, steel, laminated plywood, wood, plywood, fiberglass, lacquered Masonite, and rubber

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 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 fit the human anatomy, using flexible materials rather than 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."

Postcard designed to promote plywood, fiberglass, and wire chairs

furniture

Advertising design for wire chairs with bird sculpture
owned by the Eameses, circa 1952

Drawing by Ray,
photographic reproduction

Hang-It-All,
designed 1952-53, manufactured 1953-57, coated-steel wire and lacquered wood

Drawing for promotional postcard,
on paper

Charles and Ray Eames's career in the 1950's mirrored America's postwar shift from an industrial society of information. Rather than furnishings and buildings, the office focused its efforts on communication systems in the forms of exhibitions, books and films. The Eameses produced these media for the governments at home and abroad., for industry, and for the education and pleasure of their friends and colleagues. In these endeavors the Eameses used imagery of daily rituals and entertainments, vernacular landscapes, and ordinary objects to promote popular culture as the currency of exchange between nations and people. Projects such as these elevated Charles and Ray Eames to the status of United States ambassadors overseas and cultural interpreters of the meaning of America at home.

Charles and Ray Eames's philosophy of the educational role of everyday things lead them to develop projects that would lead people to find beauty in the everyday. Charles heard the music of Bach in the splash of soapy water on an asphalt schoolyard- and made the film Blacktop. Ray saw beauty in the shape of a utilitarian leg splint- and made elegant sculptures. The Eameses' ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary is one of their greatest legacies.

The Eames's films and slide shows gave the spectator, in Charles's words, a "new depth of vision." Encompassing an enormous breadth of subject matter, the Eameses' slide shows were assembled for school courses and lectures as well as for their client's corporate events. Like objects themselves, the Eameses' slides were valuable media of information, providing essential connections to distant times, places and cultures.

Image of India taken by the Eameses

culture

Crosspatch fabric design by Ray, 1945 photographic reproduction

First submitted to a competition at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1947, Crosspatch was then commercially produced by Schiffer Prints.

beauty

Painted by Ray,
gouache on varnished plywood.

Image of India taken by the Eameses

Indian lotas

The Eameses sought to foster universal understanding of socially beneficial science. To help people understand new technologies and their potential, they produced approximately sixty films, exhibitions, and books for such corporations as IBM, Boeing, Polaroid, and Westinghouse. Throughout their careers, the Eameses counted many scientists as colleagues and friends, joining their community as visual communicators.

A major theme in all the Eameses' scientific endeavors was the beauty and elegance of scientific principles and the tools they used to study and convey them. Revealing science's complex integration of art, philosophy, and nature, the Eameses' films and exhibitions successfully related the unfamiliar aspects of everyday life. These projects translated complex ideas into simple images to make them understandable to the lay person.

Powers of Ten (10⁰)

science

Chart plotting sequences of Powers of Ten

Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero (1977)

The ultimate Eamesian expression of systems and connections, Powers of Ten (1977, first version 1968) explores the relative size of things from the microscopic to the cosmic. With the camera pulling back at the rate of 10/10 meters per second, the film travels from an aerial view of a man in a Chicago park to the outer limits of the universe directly above him and back down into the microscopic world contained in the man's hand. Powers of Ten illustrates the universe as an arena of both continuity and change, of everyday picnics and cosmic mystery. Powers of Ten also demonstrates the Eameses' ability to make science both fascinating and accessible to the lay person.

Powers of Ten (10¹)

Powers of Ten (10³)

Powers of Ten (10²)

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