Ray Kaiser Eames was key figure in the New York art scene, who later collaborated with her husband, Charles Eames, an architect, in the design of architecture, textiles, film, furniture, and graphic art. Their creative partnership was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in design. They are best known for their furniture design, innovations in industrial design and manufacturing such as wood molding to produce furniture, and the photographic arts.
“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”
~ Charles Eames
Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of the 20th century. They created what is now known as “midcentury style” in furniture and architecture. They experimented with new forms of aesthetic design, creating Mondrian-inspired storage and avant-garde furnishings.
Their work on molded wood furniture followed a project to develop a leg splint for wounded soldiers during WWII, for which they used layers of bent plywood. They developed techniques for bonding layers of wood veneer together using resin glue, then shaping the wood into the required form using heat and pressure. This process was developed in later collaborations with furniture makers Herman Miller and Vitra to create iconic designs such as the Eames Lounge Chair (bottom-right in the image above).
We celebrate Eames’ designs because they were innovators, but also because they combined visual innovation with functionality and ease-of-use. When presented with a need – or an opportunity – they developed ways of using new materials to produce designs that were scalable (for manufacturing), visually-pleasing, and comfortable. There is no point in producing a design that does not fit a need – or that is difficult to use even when it does.