Design Furniture: Eames Office Chair  , Eames La Chaise  , Charles and Ray Eames Office Chair  , Eames Molded Plywood Lounge Chair  , Herman Miller Molded Plywood Dining Chair  , Elipse Table  , Eames Wire Base Table  , Eames Aluminum Office Chair  , Eames Plywood Coffee Table  , Retro Designed Aluminum Executive Lounge Chairs and Ottoman  , Management Chairs as designed by Charles & Ray Eames  , CF138  , Eames Conference Table , Eames Round Table  , Aluminum Office chair  , CF073  , Eames Office Chair  , Eames Base Chair  , Aluminum Office Chair  , Eames Lounge Chair

Where he learned about engineering, drawing, and architecture (and also first entertained the idea of one day becoming an architect).

Charles briefly studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis on an architectural scholarship. After two years of study, he left the university. Many sources claim, with little evidence, that he was dismissed for his advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright and his interest in modern architects. Several websites claim that "In the report describing why he was dismissed from the university, a professor wrote the comment 'His views were too modern.'" This alleged comment has yet to be attributed to any specific member of the architectural faculty. Other sources, less frequently cited, note that while a student, Charles Eames also was employed as an architect at the firm of Trueblood and Graf.[1] The demands on his time from this employment and from his classes, led to sleep-deprivation and diminished performance at the university. It needs to be explored and researched further to determine the actual cause of his departure from the university, rather than repeating the old, unverified story of his being a victim of backward-looking faculty who supposedly threw him out simply for his points of view.

While at Washington University, he met his first wife, Catherine Woermann, whom he married in 1929. A year later, they had a daughter, Lucia.

In 1930, Charles began his own architectural practice in St. Louis with partner Charles Gray. They were later joined by a third partner, Walter Pauley.

Charles Eames was greatly influenced by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (whose son Eero, also an architect, would become a partner and friend). At the elder Saarinen's invitation, Charles moved in 1938 with his wife Catherine and daughter Lucia to Michigan, to further study architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he would become a teacher and head of the industrial design department. In order to apply for the Architecture and Urban Planning Program, Eames defined an area of focus - the St. Louis waterfront. Together with Eero Saarinen he designed prize-winning furniture for New York's Museum of Modern Art "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition.[2] Their work displayed the new technique of wood moulding (originally developed by Alvar Aalto), that Eames would further develop in many moulded plywood products, including, beside chairs and other furniture, splints and stretchers for the U.S. Navy during World War II.[3]

In 1941, Charles and Catherine divorced, and he married his Cranbrook colleague Ray Kaiser, who was born in Sacramento, California. He then moved with her to Los Angeles, California, where they would work and live for the rest of their lives. In the late 1940s, as part of the Arts & Architecture magazine's "Case Study" program, Ray and Charles designed and built the groundbreaking Eames House, Case Study House #8, as their home. Located upon a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and hand-constructed within a matter of days entirely of pre-fabricated steel parts intended for industrial construction, it remains a milestone of modern architecture.

Biography

1907 Charles Eames Jr. is born in St Louis, Missouri, the second child of Adele and Charles Sr., a railway security officer.

1912 Bernice Alexandra Kaiser, nicknamed Ray, is born in Sacramento California. Her father is an insurance salesman.

1915 While working in Virginia, Charles Eames Sr. is shot by trainrobbers. Injured, he ekes out a living as a journalist only to die in 1919.

1925 On graduating from high school, Charles wins an architecture scholarship at Washington University, St Louis.

1929 After marrying a fellow student, Catherine Woermann, Charles honeymoons in Europe and discovers the buildings of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and Le Corbusier.

1930 Back in St Louis, Charles opens an architectural office with Charles Gray. Ray and her widowed mother move to New York.

1933 She studies painting with Hans Hofmann and continues until 1939.

1936 With a new architectural partner, Robert Walsh, Charles designs the modern-style Meyer House in collaboration with Eliel Saarinen who becomes a friend and in 1938 offers him a fellowship at Cranbrook.

1940 Ray enrols at Cranbrook where Charles is teaching industrial design. Charles collaborates with Eero Saarinen on cabinets and chairs for an Organic Design competition at MoMA, New York.

1941 Having divorced Catherine, Charles marries Ray in Chicago and they drive to California. They turn a spare room into a plywood workshop.

1942 After winning an order from the US Navy for plywood leg splints, the Eames open a design studio on nearby Santa Monica Boulevard.

1945 The Plywood Chair goes into production.

1946 Charles is the subject of a "one man show" at MoMA, New York at which George Nelson persuades the Herman Miller company to hire him.

1948 Charles and Eero Saarinen win MoMA's Low Cost Furniture Competition with a design for a fibreglass chaise longue.

1949 Construction begins of the two Case Study Houses designed by the Eames in Pacific Palisades: one for themselves, the other designed with and as a home for the architect John Entenza.

1950 The Good Design exhibition series starts at MoMa featuring many of the Eames' designs. They design the (unbuilt) Billy Wilder House.

1952 Launch of the first version of the interlocking House of Cards. Henceforth, the Eames are increasingly preoccupied with films, games and puzzles.

1956 Lounge Chair goes on sale.

1958 The Eames complete an official report into design education in India. Launch of the Aluminium Series of office furniture.

1964 After years of making educational and promotional films for IBM, the Eames design the IBM Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

1968 Power of Ten, one of the Eames' most influential films, is produced.

1978 Charles Eames dies in Los Angeles.

1988 Ray Eames dies ten years to the day after Charles' death.

Design Furniture:CF018   CF129   CF071   CF035   CF047   CF048   CF076   CF077   CF093   CF113   CF114   CF123   CF138   CF140   CF141   CF096   CF073   CF125   CF086   CF127   CF021