In Celebration of Eames

With the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charles Eames on July 17, Eames fever is in the air: Eames 100: This is the Trick opens on August 9th at the Emmanual Gallery in Denver; philly.com ran an article on the anniversary's occasion, focusing on Charles and Ray Eames' 1949 home and studio in Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades neighborhood, instead of the furniture that many people associate the name Eames with; a couple weeks ago I found out about a great web site devoted to the old Arts & Architecture magazine and its Case Study House Program, the Eames' house being number 49 and perhaps the most famous; oh, and my wife and I just the other day, coincidentally, received our wedding gift.


A page from "Case Study House for 1949" (PDF link)

All this Eames fever takes me back to when I discovered the husband and wife design duo. During the third year of undergrad one of our projects was "A Guest House for a Great House," where we were given a famous house, analyzed it, and designed a guest house that respected the ideas of the original but went beyond it in some way. My house was, yep, the Charles and Ray Eames House. I learned about as much as I could about the couple and their designs at the time, from their early designs in bent wood (as leg splints in WWII), their toys (House of Cards being the most well known), their films (Powers of Ten easily the most famous), to their architecture, though with a short project duration I was only able to scratch the surface of their accomplishments. This anniversary, and the numerous events occurring around it, are a great reminder to keep digging and learn more about the genius and inexhaustible creativity of Charles and Ray Eames.