Het
ontwerpers echtpaar:
Ray
(1912-1988) en Charles Eames (1907-1978)
Charles and Ray Eames
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A chair that looked
like a potato chip. Another that resembled a
"well-used first baseman's mitt." A folding screen
that rippled...
With a grand sense
of adventure, Charles and Ray Eames turned their
curiosity and boundless enthusiasm into creations
that established them as a truly great
husband-and-wife design team. Their unique synergy
led to a whole new look in furniture. Lean and
modern. Playful and functional. Sleek,
sophisticated, and beautifully simple. That was—and
is—the "Eames look."
That look—and their
relationship with Herman Miller—started with molded
plywood chairs in the late 1940s and includes the
world-renowned Eames lounge chair, now in the
permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in
New York.
Charles and Ray
achieved their monumental success by approaching
each project the same way: Does it interest and
intrigue us? Can we make it better? Will we have
"serious fun" doing it?
They loved their
work, which was a combination of art and science,
design and architecture, process and product, style
and function. "The details are not details," said
Charles. "They make the product."
A problem-solver
who encouraged experimentation among his staff,
Charles once said his dream was "to have people
working on useless projects. These have the germ of
new concepts."
Their own concepts
evolved over time, not overnight. As Charles noted
about the development of the moldes plywood chair,
"Yes, it was a flash of inspiration," he said, "a
kind of 30-year flash."
With these two, one
thing always seemed to lead to another. Their
revolutionary work in molded plywood led to their
breakthrough work in molded fiberglass seating. A
magazine contest led to their highly innovative
"Case Study" house. Their love of photography led to
film making, including a huge seven-screen
presentation at the Moscow World's Fair in 1959, in
a dome designed by their friend and colleague,
Buckminster Fuller.
Graphic design led
to showroom design, toy collecting to toy inventing.
And a wooden plank contraption, rigged up by their
friend, director Billy Wilder for taking naps, led
to their acclaimed chaise design.
A design critic
once said that this extraordinary couple "just
wanted to make the world a better place." That they
did. They also made it a lot more interesting.
